Robinson's Jam

THE applause that greeted the final whistle at the conclusion of the Yellows' last game of the season had barely dissolved on the breeze before manager Leigh Robinson was turning his thoughts to the 2024-25 Pitching In Southern League Premier Division South campaign.

Leigh oversaw a long survival fight against possible relegation after his appointment on November 1, with Tivvy's concluding 1-0 home victory over Sholing taking them to a safe mid-table finish that looked a long way off during some dark winter months.

Leigh said: "Managers of teams have just avoided relegation will always drop this line out, which I'm about to do, that the first job is to make sure that we're not in this position next year and, for us at the moment as a club, just progress on and off the pitch.

"Obviously we've got a brand new committee off the pitch. We're doing so much work behind the scenes and they've got so much work to kind of rebuild the football club, give it a little shot in the arm, and they're working really hard to do that.

"So I don't want to put on any labels on where we should finish next year in terms of positions or anything like that but just win as many matches as you can.

"We've got to make sure that now we take this season and we build towards trying to win something in the future because avoiding relegation is the minimum I think this club should be achieving. The team hasn't won anything apart from survival."

Leigh also paid tribute to Martyn Rogers and Scott Rogers, who had begun the season in charge of the Yellows before he and assistant Ben Gerring took over.

He said: "They put together a really good squad this year that we were lucky to inherit when we did. So big respect and appreciation for them because we've not made wholesale changes, so it shows that it was the right squad.

"I think this squad has got some really good togetherness, a really good chemistry. We could improve a couple of things in a couple of areas and we'll see where we are in terms of that. I've got a meeting next week.

"We need to improve a little bit on the pitch and a lot off the pitch which the club will help me to do.

"They did warn me when I came in that they weren't ideally set up for this level of football. So we got a lot of work to do, on the pitch and off the pitch and on the pitch next season.

"That will start almost immediately."