Haylock looking to improve and progress young players as Windsor boss

Photo credit: Gary House

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Having been installed as the new Windsor FC manager last week, Garry Haylock took charge of his first match at the weekend, and things didn’t exactly go to plan.

Having had only one training session with the players before kick-off, Haylock felt he couldn’t take much credit or criticism following the 3-0 defeat to Yateley, however, director of football, Kevin Stott, felt the performance was much better than the result suggested.

Trailing 1-0 at the break to Joshua Mynard’s goal, things got worse after the interval with Harry Lee and Charlie Westell hammering home Yateley’s advantage at Holloways Park.

Steve Hale has been in caretaker charge of the team since Diogo Nobre stood down from the role for personal reasons, guiding the club to a couple of useful wins over Eversley & California and Bedfont FC.

However, Haylock – a former professional footballer for Huddersfield Town, Shelbourne and Portadown amongst other clubs – has now assumed the position and he’ll be looking to bring his coaching experience to bear on this exciting crop of young players.

“It’s coaching young players, and the view is that they can make something of themselves in the game,” he said. “They’re very motivated and I’ve had one session and one game. It’s clear that there are a lot of players there with ability, but it’s about organising them and getting them into a shape and system and culture that delivers some results.

“I’m just concentrating on my role which is trying to improve the players.

“Every single club has got the problem of how you progress 16-18-year-olds into the first team. It happens in the Premier League, because the average age of a Premier League debut is 23, so what are those players doing before that. The Premier League have tried to improve the u18s leagues, they’ve brought in u23s leagues, they’ve looked at the B teams and no one has found an answer to it. Beaconsfield are no different to that, but they’ve come up with a plan to help Windsor out and hopefully these players can progress and step up into Beaconsfield’s first team.

“I can’t take credit for anything on Saturday, or any blame at this stage. I was told on a course that it can take 18 months for a manager to make his mark, and that’s with the same players. But the average length of a manager in the Championship is 13 months, so how does that work? It takes time, you build things.

“The idea with Windsor is that we improve the players gradually. The hope is that some will progress quickly, but there’s a large stock of players beneath them who are looking to come through. Last week, they had two 16-year-olds playing, which is a fantastic achievement.

“Results are important, but in this instance, we don’t live or die by results so it takes some of the pressure off. I don’t think any chairman has ever put me under as much pressure as I put myself under. We conceded some disappointing goals on Saturday, and I was disappointed to lose, but with young players you can get that. They can have a good game but make one mistake and you lose 1-0. It’s having an acceptance of that and overtime I’m sure we’ll make it better.”

His coaching and management experience includes spells with Hayes & Yeading United in the National League and Farnborough, while he was also a first team coach and analyst with Exeter City. Most recently he was also manager of local rivals Binfield.

The Royalists return to action at third placed Berks County on Saturday, January 27 before hosting Westside at Holloways Park on January 30. Haylock’s side are 18th in the Combined Counties League 1 table, nine points above the drop zone, however, they’ve played more games than some of the teams beneath them.