News

“Championship” and “league title” became words to be uttered in nothing more than a whisper after last season’s calamity in which Rovers chase for their greatest prize fell humiliatingly into disarray and disaster in the final 10 games of the season.

This season, however, Gresley have resumed their quest for West Midlands soccer crock of gold, casting aside the disappointment of last May with commendable determination.

And while no plans for an end-of-season celebration have been made yet, Saturday’s victory over Wolverhampton Casuals marked the successful completion of the latest phase of what is becoming Rovers’ most realistic title tilt yet.

A comfortable 3-0 win meant Gresley had taken an astonishing 55 points from the first 60 available – last seasons champions Hinckley Town won the title with just 80 points from 40 games.

And with tomorrow’s game at Westfields marking the half way point in this season’s campaign Rovers know that they need only to do the same again in the second half of the season not only to win the title by a mile but to set a new league points record.

No-one is looking ahead that far, however. Instead, Gresley are doing things by degrees this time.

Coach Steve Dolby said after the defeat of Casuals: “We set out to take maximum points from the holiday programme and today’s win means we’ve done that, which is very pleasing.

“We’ve been a bit below par in some games lately but over the last two matches we’ve been back to playing well and I think it was superb performance today.”

And while there’s still half a season to go that must surely spell bad news for anyone who thinks they can snatch the title from Gresley this time around.