Radstock Town Manager, Ray Johnston, discusses management with Ian Nockolds on the Toolstation Western League Podcast.

IN: Well, I’m delighted to welcome back to the Toolstation Western League podcast Ray Johnston, the manager of Radstock Town. Ray, thanks very much for taking the time to speak. When we last spoke, I got the impression that this Radstock job was proving one of the toughest that you’d had in management. You had a pretty big rebuilding job on your hands, but since then you’ve moved off the bottom of the first division and now you’ve picked up your second win of the season. So, does this mean that the green shoots of recovery are starting to show at Southfields Recreation Ground?

RJ: Sometimes yes and sometimes no. We do a lot of good things well at the minute, with the squad we’ve got now. We do a lot of good things well, but we do a lot of basic things wrong sometimes. Put it this way, if I had this squad at the start of the season, we’d be like mid-table pushing the Europa spots. We’ve used over fifty players so far this season. So, that highlights sort of where we’ve been in terms of begging, stealing and borrowing to get players in to fulfil fixtures and stuff. We’re now in a position where I think we could be competitive in most of the games we play. And yeah, on that basis, we’ve just got to keep pushing forward. It has been frustrating. There’s been times where Elliot and I have had to get our heads together and go like, ‘Are we actually doing the right thing here?’ We’ve questioned ourselves; we’ve questioned our ability and stuff like that, but as it turns out, it was just a case of plodding on, believing in the process and bit by bit, player by player, we’re improving the squad every single week, there’s always another one in that improves the squad. We’re at a position now where we’re getting players in to improve the squad rather than to just get games fulfilled. So yes, we’re in a better state now than we were before.

IN: Obviously, the weather has been playing havoc with our fixtures in the run up to Christmas, but did that provide you with a bit of an opportunity to have a sort of another preseason? You know, to look at the squad, to work to get some more players in, have you been able to use those breaks to your benefit?

RJ: To be honest, I think we’d rather just keep plodding on because the way to learn is to keep playing. We’ve not been a million miles away in terms of availability, people have been becoming more available and as the squad improves, people seem to want to make themselves more available. So, we’re at a better place now than we’ve been before and Saturday was like the realisation that that’s actually happening.

IN: So, tell us a bit about Saturday, then, that win over Bishop Sutton. Was that your best performance this season?

RJ: We’ve shown glimpses of how we play in lots of games, unfortunately, we’ve not been able to continue that for ninety minutes. And we’ve had all the bits of luck; we’ve had iffy ref’s decisions, we’ve had like deflections, we’ve had individual mistakes, and then that seems to knock us back quite a bit, the confidence has been that low. Monday’s game, we started well, finished well, and the bit in the middle was pretty good as well. It’s a shame we didn’t have our shooting boots on because the score might have been a little bit more. I’m fully aware we caught them on an off-day, they hadn’t played for five or six weeks beforehand, and if we were to play them again tomorrow, there’s no way that we would have the game that much in our favour. But we needed that, to be honest, not so much the result, but we needed the performance. The performance was incredible, in comparison to what we’ve produced prior. We got lucky, there was a goal that was offside that was given offside, and when we were 1-0 up, I dread to think what effect that would have had on the side if they’d have scored it, if that would have counted. So, fortunately, on this occasion, we got the rub of the green, which we haven’t been having, and we made the most of it.

IN: Obviously, we talked about the rebuilding job, but I know that you were trying to bring through some younger players. Is that still the case? Or in order to try and overcome some of the challenges, some of the setbacks you talked about in terms of confidence, you know, when you’ve had a poor performance, have you tried to blend a bit more experience in with the youth?

RJ: Yeah, but it’s got to be the right person. I’ve never been one of those that particularly cares too much about people’s age. I’ll just go on abilities. I mean, yeah, you do need a mix, you do need a couple of older heads in there that have got a bit of naus and a bit of game management about themselves. But you know, I’ve got some young players in the team that are starting to learn how to game manage and learning how to see things out and learning how to do the right things at the right time.

So, age isn’t a problem for me. If I’m being honest, the last four signings I’ve made, I think three of them have been 18 or under, and those have been real quality additions to the squad.

So yeah, we’ll just keep pushing forward and I don’t really care about age or experience as long as they’re producing what I want them to.

IN: So, is it going to be a tale of two seasons for Radstock Town? In fact, I think we had a conversation last time we spoke about how well Gillingham have done to turn their season around. Do you think that that’s something that, now you’ve got some positive results under your belt, do you think the second half of the season could be one that Miners fans can be looking forward to with some optimism?

RJ: I think anyone that came and watched on Saturday would’ve seen the way that we played and would be like, ‘Well we’ve been waiting for that all season, thank God for that.’ So, if you saw us for the first time on Monday you’d come back and watch but my challenge to the players will be that no matter how well you played it’s only worth three points, and before then you’d only won one game up to Christmas. It’s time to get their feet back on the ground and get them to keep working hard to reproduce what they’ve done. Anything less than that, they’re doing themselves and the club a disservice. So, that’s where we are now, ‘right, you’ve shown you can do it’ and me as a manager has go to use sort of psychological skills on them and just say, ‘right, you’ve done nothing now, it’s only worth three points. If you don’t kick on from there now, then it’s wasted.’ When we’ve had our losses I’ve got to pick them up and now that we’ve had a win I can now try and drive them forward.

IN: Because it’s going to be a busy old January for you, isn’t it? As long as the weather gods don’t interfere with the fixture list again. It gets underway in pretty daunting style, you’ve got a game this Saturday away at Bristol Telephones, and I’m sure that won’t be easy, and then you take on Nailsea and Tickenham, and Wells City. I mean, are they almost free hits for you and your side? Is it just a question of putting a team out and seeing how well they can play against the two top teams in the division?

RJ: I’ll never be the kind of manager that is of the mindset that I’m prepared to forgo three points, no matter who it’s against. No matter what side I’ve got. The bizarre thing about management is - if I try and explain it - is that I could have my Radstock Town team from the start of the season, and we could draw Man United in the FA Cup and I’d still fancy [our chances]. The way that your mind works is like, ‘look, the likelihood is slim, but if we do this game plan and this player is available, and we’re getting a little bit of -’. There’s a way that you could convince yourself that you’re going to be alright, do you know what I mean? You convince yourself that you could make a result. So, yes, Nailsea and Tickenham are by far the best side in our league, from the games that I’ve seen, accompanied with [Brislington] and Wells. But yeah, I’m not going to just take them as free hits, because if I give that mindset to the boys, then that will come across and they will drop their standards and be thinking, ‘well, it doesn’t matter if we don’t win this.’ That’s not a mentality I’m prepared to live with.

IN: Ray, thanks as always for giving up the time to speak to us on the podcast. And of course, thank you as always for your candour, and I look forward to catching up with you later in the season.