EXPLAINING 'BLACK HERCULES' & A REPORT ON THE TEAM'S 2-2 DRAW AT STOCKTON BY MANAGER ZACK BEVINS...

'Black Hercules' was apparently the name of a horse 

that a number of the lads had backed at the 

Cheltenham festival a few years ago and since 

then, whenever playing in 5 or 6-a-side 

competitions, they would always use that as the 

team's name. When the large core of the squad split 

from Brinklow last year, it was the natural thing to 

do to call themselves: 

BLACK HERCULES...

BLACK HERCULES' Assistant 

Manager is Andy Jones...

Sponsors: RB coaching... Ryan Byrne, the owner is 

also playing for the year but was away for the 

Stockton match. 

Also: Whilton Mill Karting & Wood2U. 

(Jeff Woodward, formally of Rugby Town, Coventry 

United, Lutterworth Athletic and Bedford Town was 

also away on holiday but will be back for 

the season's start.) 

MANAGER ZACK BEVINS COMMENTS ON HIS TEAM'S 2-2 DRAW AT STOCKTON... 

"On a Sunny Tuesday evening Black Hercules visited Stockton FC in a friendly arranged at 2 days’ notice. For the first time we’d managed a squad of over 14 in what was our fourth game as a side. 

THE CHAPS IN CHARGE...

The game started very lackadaisically from a Hercules perspective with the midfield trio of Glassoce, Ford and Thomas chasing possession and the defence of Roberts, Whittam, Walker and Smith under some initial pressure. After 10 minutes or so however the boys managed to settle down and we began to play some good football with Roberts and Morley combining well on the right in the first game they’d played together down the right hand side, eventually a chance was given to captain Tommy Glasscoe and he duly obliged by giving us the 1-0 lead. We continued to settle down and play some good free flowing football which led to the second goal, taken by Thomas with a great header from a short corner by Kolodynski to Morley who put the cross in for the assist. After that we made our first two changes on 30 mins with Smith being replaced by Ford-Kalym and Walker replaced by Jack. We remained fairly comfortable in the lead up until the last couple of minutes before the half when Stockton had a barrage of corners and had us pinned in until the referee blew the whistle for half-time.

WAITING FOR HALF TWO...

At the break we stressed that we needed to continue to 

play the way in which we were and stay out of the 

nastiness provided by Stockton’s dogged team but as it 

was pre-season we made 3 more changes, bringing 

Gibbs and Phillips on for Morley and Thomas and 

putting Walker back on for Whittam. Making 3 changes 

in a back 4 already on the back foot within the first 45 

minutes of a game is never the greatest idea but in pre-

season the entire squad requires to get its fair share of 

game time. Stockton were straight on us after making 

us wait for over 5 minutes for the restart and within 15 

minutes had scored 2 scrappy goals from set-pieces. At 

that point in the interest of tightening things we made 

yet more changes with Whittam, Smith, Thomas and 

Morley coming back on, and it seemed to work until a 

slight altercation on the pitch led both teams into 

making a change and Ford-Kalym came back on after a 

short stint running the line. After 10 more minutes of 

even play and both teams having chances we decided 

to go for broke and to try and nick a goal, making 

another 3 changes and almost playing with 4 forwards. 

We had chances again but nothing came of them and in 

the end at the whistle, a draw seemed like a fair result. 

TROUBLE @ MILL...

A great learning curve for our footballing side on how, if 

you react to little niggly fouls etc, in the wrong way you 

can be drawn into a dog fight. We have our fifth and 

final pre-season friendly on Saturday against the only 

opposition we’ll have faced playing at our actual level 

and we look to maintain our unbeaten record going into 

the season. We wish the best of luck to Stockton FC for 

the year and thanks for a great game."

TOMMY GLASSCOE...

MIKE THOMAS...

ZACK BEVINS, MANAGER, BLACK 

HERCULES...