We’re Back on the Map!

By Matt Badcock,
Gary Meakin says the aim is to keep putting ‘little Beaconsfield Town' on the map – but they've got a free hit at the Evo-Stik Southern Premier South.
The Rams come up to Step 3 as champions having lifted the Evo-Stik South East title last season when they edged out AFC Rushden & Diamonds.
But despite the lack of expectation, to Meakin – one of Non-League's up and coming bosses at 34 years old – their sucess was no fluke.
“To everyone outside of Beaconsfield it is, ‘Little old Beaconsfield, how did they win the league?'” Meakin told The NLP. “But with the things the chairman, I and everybody else are doing behind the scenes, it wasn't an accident.
“On the technological side of things, we get GPS for workload and recovery, we've had Hudl where we analyse every game. I sit and watch game after game, analyse it and send it to the players through the week. All that works that goes on culminated in us winning the league.
“For anyone else outside of it who only sees on a Saturday afternoon it's, ‘How on earth have they don't that?' So it's quite pleasing in that respect, but now can we build on it and see what happens?”
Meakin, right, says it's the added extras that means he is able to entice the right players to the club rather than throwing cash around.
“They love it,” Meakin added. “When I sat down with the chairman when he asked me to come in I said, ‘We haven't got much money so we need to tick every box of why someone wants to play football'. If a player is playing for money they won't be playing for us because they can get more elsewhere. But games are filmed, you get a nice training kit, a nice facility to train at, you get analysis, you get the diet side – all the boxes people like, can you get as many of them ticked so money isn't all they are worried about?
“What we're finding is we're getting the right people who want to play football for the right reasons. Success follows that. That's the platform we're coming from and at the moment it's working.”
With the club getting ready off the field and the majority of last season's squad staying, Meakin says the pressure is off.
“We've got a free go, we can turn up to any game with no pressure,” Meakin said.
“If our start goes well, then great. If it doesn't, because we've been together for a while and because of what we have achieved, no one will push any panic buttons as we know where we're at. So it's nice to have that comfort blanket.
“Last year, having had two years at Egham where we got in the play-offs you have a certain amount of pressure on yourselves. This year it's a free go.”
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