Smells like team spirit – how Hayling United’s squad ethos has revitalised a club now aiming for a Wessex League return

The Humbugs were in stunning form prior to Covid-19 taking control of the worldwide sporting fixture list in mid-March.

Dan Bishop’s side had rattled off eight successive Hampshire Premier League Senior Division wins, scoring 38 goals in the process. It was the largest winning run by any club in the HPL top flight last season.

Hayling were fifth when the campaign was abruptly ended - the club’s highest position in the pyramid since they dropped out of the Wessex League at the end of 2013/14.

They had five games remaining, and with home matches against Infinity and Bush Hill still to come could have had a huge say in the title race.

All a far cry from last summer, then, when Bishop and assistant Gary Taylor were thrust into their first team management roles a day before pre-season started. Having been at Bosham reserves the previous season, they had been due to take charge of the Humbugs’ reserves.

Only a handful of players remained from the squad that had finished 11th out of 16 in 2018/19 - teenager Harry Frost, Luke Wheatcroft, Will Ford and Matt Topple. Dan Goodsell had been at the club the previous season but only started a few games.

Bishop is determined to do all he can to lead Hayling back into the Wessex, where they previously played for 10 seasons - starting in 2004/05 - with a best place of 12th in the Premier in 2008.

It was his idea to produce the 36-page end-of-season ‘review’ programme which has just been published. For a club at HPL level, it is an impressive production and befitting one which has aspirations to progress.

‘I want to raise awareness of the club,’ Bishop explained. ‘We are ambitious, and we want to get to potential sponsors and say ‘this is what we’re all about.’

On the pitch Hayling will need a lofty finish in 2020/21 to realise any promotion dream, while off it they need to bring their facilities at Hayling College up to Wessex level.

Around £2,500 is being spent this summer to improve the pitch, while other necessary improvements will be the installation of a perimeter fence and a turnstile, and updated changing facilities.

‘We need the stars to align, and then we can go full steam ahead with it,’ said Bishop.

‘We are making a big effort - the programme is a start. We have a number of small businesses that are looking to support us financially.

‘It’s little things - at the ground we’ve been able to offer hot drinks and something to eat.’

Though not living on the Island himself, Bishop is keen to ensure the Hayling community buy into the club’s plans.

‘The boys would love to see some new faces next season come and watch them. It would be great to get the local community on board,’ he explained.

‘I would love to see more local lads from the island coming through.’

At present, Hayling have youth teams up to under-15 level, and are keen to strengthen links with Hayling St Andrews who have an under-18 team.

‘We want to create a pathway, with under-16s, under-18s, reserves and into the first team,’ Bishop said. ‘Hopefully it will come good, and it will go hand in hand with what the club are trying to do off the field.

‘I think we’ve only got two Hayling lads at the club, it’s mad. One of them, Jack Mardell, has come through from Hayling St Andrews u18s - that’s brilliant. There’s two or three more I have my eye on for next year.’

The Hayling players have helped out with regards pitch improvements.

‘Over the years the pitch has taken a bit of a battering, it needs a bit of love.

‘We needed to spend about £2,500 on machinery to rip the debris out of it and give it a chance to come good for pre-season.

‘All the lads, without exception, have paid their subs - £25 a month - up front and that has allowed us to do the pitch improvements. They’d normally have started paying the subs in July.

‘They’re a brilliant bunch of lads, I couldn’t be happier with them. I will certainly be loyal to them.’

Even at HPL level, running a football team is not cheap. Any money-making avenue needs to be explored, and Hayling were planning to host a youth football tournament this summer to raise around £5,000.

Obviously Covid-19 has scuppered that, with Bishop admitting: ‘That money would have been five twelfths of this season’s money.

‘It cost us around £12,000 and that figure will probably be about £15,000 next season.

‘We will have to be creative in other ways instead.

‘There are plans for a golf day at Tournebury and we’ll get some advertising boardings up at the ground. We didn’t have any last season.’

Costs certainly add up at non-league level. The players train twice a week, on Front Lawn’s 4G pitch on Tuesdays and at the Bodyworx Gym in Leigh Park on Thursdays. The cost is £640 per month for eight months - a total of £5,120.

In addition, pitch hire, match officials and match balls equate to around £150 per game. Over the course of a 19-game HPL season, that’s another £2,250 - plus any cup ties.

‘It would be great to see local businesses getting involved, their families coming to watch the games and their children playing for the youth teams,’ outlined Bishop.

‘We’re not inventing anything new with that, but that would be the perfect scenario for me.’

Bishop is adamant that any future success Hayling enjoy will be based on a ‘whole club’ ethos, as opposed to a ‘first team’ and ‘reserves’ set-up.

‘We have 36 players in the group, and we’re one group,’ he explained. ‘We train together, everyone is coached the same way so when someone comes into the first team it’s a natural fit.

‘It’s important no-one feels there’s a divide.

‘I don’t like the word reserves - it undermines what we are trying to achieve. We need two competitive teams if we are to get where we want to be.

‘I genuinely felt I had 22 lads who could play in the first team last season. Unless the Wyvern League team are competitive they’re not going to enjoy what they are doing and that will weaken our squad.’

With regards the ‘team ethos’, Bishop was happy his squad didn’t have to rely on one player scoring the majority of the goals. Indeed, Goodsell was their leading HPL scorer with just 10 goals.

That is not bad for a team in the top five, but certainly not unusual either; for example, Paulsgrove were second when the season was halted with their top league marksmen - Moulay Ousman and Ben Vassallo - having netted just six times apiece.

Of Hayling’s first team regulars, everyone scored in 2019/20 apart from Ford and Josh Elmes.

Elmes was given the chance to score from the penalty spot in what turned out to be Hayling’s final game at Locks Heath on March 15 - and promptly saw his spot-kick saved.

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One of the youngest members of the Hayling United squad was a double winner when the end-of-season awards were handed out.

Teenager Harry Frost was voted the committee’s first team player of 2019/20 as well as the players’ player of the season.

Skipper Elliot Spencer was voted the manager’s first team player by Dan Bishop.

Frost started 15 games last term, with another eight sub outings, and scored six goals from a wing-back role.

‘Next season he could start to do some serious damage,’ said Bishop. ‘He’s quick, he’s fearless, and he’s easy to coach as he listens.

‘Harry can play in a number of positions. People were telling me he was a striker but with the 3-5-2 system I wanted to play I couldn’t see him there.

‘I like my wing-backs to play high, to play wide, I don’t ask them to do much defending. Harry ended the season as a real threat from left wing-back.’

Spencer, a centre half, was one of many new players brought in last summer.

‘I’d never met him before, he came in as we needed one or two older heads,’ Bishop explained.

‘I could see straight away he would be an ideal fit for what I wanted to do - he’s very composed, he encourages the lads all the time.

‘He’s not got a big voice, he’s not a shouter, but he says the right things at the right times.

‘I could see after two or three training sessions that he would be the captain, it was an easy decision.’

Toby Wilson was another double award winner. He won Dan Greenwood’s vote as manager’s reserve team player of the season, and also won the players’ reserve team honour as well.

Elliot Hewson was the committee’s reserve player of the season.