LISTEN: Cooper eyes Trophy Final

Denton Town Football Club are potentially 90 minutes away from securing their place in the Saturday Challenge Trophy final – and joint-manager Phill Cooper fancies his side’s chances. 

The Whittles Park outfit take on Abacus Media FC at Cardinal Langley RC High School in the semi-final on Saturday. The game was originally meant to take place on home soil last weekend, however the recent weather rendered the Whittles Park surface unplayable and the fixture has since been moved to a 3g surface. 

The delay has given Cooper an extra week to prepare, and whilst he’s unhappy with his side’s current league position, the former Dukinfield Town boss is optimistic about Town’s prospects in the trophy. 

Speaking to Reporter Sport ahead of the clash, which kicks-off at 2pm, Cooper said: “I’ve been confident in this competition since the start of it, it’s a competition that I personally think is there for the taking. To date we’ve not let ourselves down and we’ve put some good performances in. We scraped through the first round against Salford Vics as they deserved to beat us, but we took our chances and they didn’t. We got to the final two years ago – it didn’t take place last year due to Covid – so to reach the final two years on the bounce would be a big achievement. I think if we could get to the final, win it and keep these players, we would go into next season with the belief that we can win the league.” 

Town have ambitions to play in the Premier Division of the Cheshire Football League, however their current form leaves them 8^th in Division One with a mountain to climb to achieve promotion. Cooper has been forced to content with a number of injuries to key players during the opening 15 fixtures this term – an issue which he feels has impeded the momentum from last season’s achievements. 

And he’s facing the same issue ahead of Saturday’s cup tie, with six or seven players side lined and unable to feature. However, Cooper remains confident and is hoping a victory can reignite his side’s form and propel Town to better fortunes in the league.  He said: “To be honest I’m quite disappointed with how the season has gone so far, at the start of the season we had big expectations after finishing as runners-up last year, so we wanted to go one better than that this year and win it to secure promotion, but for different reasons that’s not come to fruition and we find ourselves in midtable, which is far below our expectations. 

“I’m the type of person who thinks ‘never say never’, but the league is a strange one to be a part of as anyone can beat anyone. Unfortunately, it’s just not gone to plan so far and we’re going to have to put a run together, take it game by game, and see where it takes us, but that’s dependent on if we have a consistent 16-18 lads playing. We have six or seven lads injured at the minute, and whilst there are different reasons as to why we are where we are, we just have to deal with it. 

“The lads we have at the moment are loyal and they train week in week out, but sometimes lads won’t train as they’ve got other things to do, but we can’t knock them as they’ve had 18 months without certain things such as festivals to go to. The biggest issue has been injuries, we’re going into the game at the weekend without five or six lads, but we’re just going to have to do our best without them.”