Fylde boss Dave Challinor spoke to Chris Park after yesterday’s thrilling victory.

 

What an absolutely cracking game and thankfully you came out on the right end of the result?

Yeah it was.  I though even though there were no goals I thought the first half was fairly open and we had some good chances and they had a couple of free kicks in dangerous situations which you think could potentially be a problem.  But I think in terms of territory and chances we probably just edged it.

And it was a great start to come out for the second half like we did.  I felt we just needed to up the tempo a little bit and make better decisions and then when Boothy shoots [from 40 yards seeing the keeper off his line] we had the opportunity to go three on one and if we’d have gone 2-0 up it would have been a different game.

But that in a strange way gave them a bit of momentum really and they put us under pressure and we obviously conceded.  We scored again, they scored again and then we scored again so we showed massive amounts of character and a good deal of quality to come through it.

As a game it had everything and could have gone either way particularly towards the end with the amount of corners they won and the amount of added time the referee continued to put on we were sort of hanging on but we showed massive resolution and held out for a win.

 

A few weeks ago when we could defend corners to then face a scenario where a team wins around ten corners in one game but not score of any of them you must be pleased you’ve turned it around defensively in that respect?

We’ve changed it a little bit in terms of how we set up for corners against us.  We used to leave men up the pitch but we get everyone back now.  You rely on people going and doing jobs there.  Especially in games like this there are fine margins between winning and losing games and being able to deal with set pieces and implement our own set pieces are a big part of any football match.  So to withstand as we did was great and the lads have done their jobs and deserved to get the result.

 

And how much will this result be a boost for the return game on New Year’s Day when going to Barrow and facing what will be another atmosphere similar to today?

I said before the game that the crowd wouldn’t affect what we do.  I don’t think it does in terms of our players.  I certainly spoke to them before the game and said I’d much rather play in front of 1,200 rather than 200 whether that be 800 singing against you and giving you a bit of stick.

Footballers, if they’re made of the right sort of thing, enjoy playing in front of people and showing what they’re made of.  It’s obviously a thing you have to control in terms of if the crowd get into the game they gain a bit of momentum it can be difficult to stop and today Barrow had a bit of a role when attacking their own fans.

But we conceded a couple of goals, possibly from small mistakes from our perspective, but we need to learn from them.

Back to the crowd scenario, we’ll go there with no fear.  We’re new to this division and we’re learning along the way and finding out that we’re a match for many teams and today isn’t the be-all-and-end-all.  It’s a win that puts us top of the league which is fantastic but we need to go to Guiseley and perform on Sunday otherwise we could go to Barrow not being top of the league.

So they’re three big games for us, not season-defining games by any means, but today puts us in a great position and it shows again that we’re more than what people might think we are.  Yes, we’re a good football team and we’ve shown different facets of ourselves in terms of having lots of spirit and resolution and we look forward to Sunday’s game.

 

You can listen to the whole interview with Dave Challinor on the club’s Audioboom channel.  The full video will be available to watch on the club’s YouTube channel in the next couple of days.