Sharman calls for more self-belief from GFC players

The Green Lions lost their last Isthmian South Central game of 2024 on Saturday, 2-0 to fifth-placed Hartley Wintney at Footes Lane, but they have the chance to bounce back from that defeat when they host another side currently in the relegation zone, Sutton Common Rovers, on New Year’s Day.

‘I said to the guys, it’s one at a time. It’s not a must-win game,’ said GFC coach Steve Sharman, looking ahead to Wednesday.

‘The only good thing that came out of losing today [to Hartley Wintney] was that we lost to a team in the top five, rather than a team that’s next to us or around us. So I said to them, again, there’s no pressure on them other than the only pressure is to believe in their ability and to believe in the way that we want them to play and believe in the process – as we did against South Park – and the results will come.

‘So that’s an opportunity for us. If we turn up and believe, we’ve got every opportunity.’

Sharman felt that the Green Lions showed on Saturday that there is not the gap between them and a play-off chasing side such as Hartley Wintney that the table might suggest, but it is up to the players to realise that.

In the end they succumbed to second-half goals from Seb Karczewski and Conor Lynch.

‘We lacked a little bit of self-belief that we could actually go and win the game, and that’s the frustrating thing really,’ Sharman said.

‘We just sat the players down and chatted to them and said, “you’ve got to believe that you’re not far away. You’ve taken a top-five team to 2-0 – two goals that were a bit scrappy – and you survived 40 long throws, corners, whatever, but was there really the belief in us that we could go and get the game and win?”.

‘There were three or four or five opportunities for us to score and we didn’t.

‘So it’s just a little bit about self-belief and they were tiny percent away today,’ Sharman added.

GFC’s match with Sutton Common Rovers on New Year’s Day kicks off at 2pm at Footes Lane.