ALEX Craddock has one word to sum up his Mossley AFC – unity.
That comes from his work outside of football for charity Mencap.
Seel Park has a new man in charge after the former assistant to David Fish stepped up at the end of last season.
But while the face may be the same, life under him is very different and he hopes his ideas can see them push up the Northern Premier League West Division table.
And at the heart of it all is staying united – in the way players work, how they play, how they speak and even how they interact with the club and its fans away from matches.
Craddock said: “Things change in the sense of messaging. I’ve got my belief in how a team should be – definitely a lot different to what David’s was.
“I’m quite clear on sort of common vocabs, common ways in which a team operates, that we’re all off the same page – my staff and I drive that.
“And you can hear the lads saying similar stuff all over the pitch, which is massive. I’m a big fan of no grey areas and I’m quite a control freak, so I like the idea of making sure that every unit knows what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
“I’m big on unity and at the moment, I’ve never seen this club in this good a place. Not just the players. The board’s all going in the same direction, the fans are really positive, the pitch looks superb, probably the best I’ve seen it in five, six years of being here.
“We’re in such a positive place. it’s just making sure that we’re getting things right.
“My day job is to basically try and get communities to work together. I’m a community partner, so in essence I need to go and get person A to talk to person B to make sure that people with learning disabilities have an opportunity.
“That’s the same here, it’s the same thing, we’re making sure everyone’s getting on, everyone’s together and I’ve relayed it to the players how much they need to interact with volunteers, the board and the fans, because they’re going to be the ones that pick us up when we do fail at times.
“What we can’t have is a divided side and folk turning up and just doing what they want, so hopefully we’re just putting some of the elements in place, like turning up at the right time, wearing the right thing, doors locked, that type of stuff, then it might make big changes.”
Part of the new regime of having players interact with fans more saw players Obua Mugalula and Gee Baltazar on hand at the Mossley 10K event after the former helped walk bands down the pitch for the brass band contest on Whit Friday.
“That definitely wasn’t part of it,” Craddock, who ran the 10K, said referring to Whit Friday. “I’m not entirely sure Obz knew what he was getting himself into!
“But we tried putting the 10K into pre-season. Thinking of loads of different ways we could get the lads and the club involved.
“We had three lads volunteering, unfortunately one had to drop out in the morning, but we had three more than what we had last year.
“Gee and Obz brought good attention to it and they love every bit of attention they can get.”
While strides have been made off the field at Mossley AFC, Craddock’s side can start to show progress on it from the FA Cup Extra Qualifying Round tie at Bradford Park Avenue on Saturday, August 2.
Striker Oumar Camara has returned as a smaller squad is being run this season, in the hope it can be leaner and meaner, especially in front of goal.
“There were times last season when we turned around and didn’t have the game changers on the bench,” the manager told The Correspondent.
“Whereas what we’ve tried to encourage this year is who can be as game changers and who can come on and sort of make a difference of some aspect.
“That’s what we’re looking for and we don’t need five or six unhappy faces in the stands.
“And we’ve definitely made strides over pre-season, massively.
“I’m hopeful that by Bradford, we’ll have a full-strength squad. We’re hoping that Will Shepherd could be involved in some aspect.
“A player warmed up against Hyde that we’ve kept eyes on and we’ll possibly bring him in as well.
“That would then take us up to about 20, which will be us done.
“We work hard on trying to make the opposition make mistakes and it’s about not replicating where we were at last year, struggling to take chances.”