Boss Dean Gill plays down title chances

Casuals have made an impressive start to the West Midlands League Premier Division season, sitting third behind Black Country Rangers and Tividale, writes Jamie Brassington.

But Gill isn’t getting carried away and insists he would be happy to achieve a top-six finish in which would clinch a place in next season’s FA Cup.

Casuals are five points behind leaders Black Country and Gill believes they have already dropped ‘six points’ this season, partly down to ‘refereeing decisions’.

Gill’s charges beat rock-bottom Bilston Town 2-1 on Saturday, with Scott Powell and Kieron Miller scoring the goals in what the boss felt was a ‘below-par performance’.

“I don’t think we are title contenders, truth be known,” said Gill, who was pleased to get back to winning ways following the 3-2 defeat against Tividale in their previous outing.

“We want to qualify for the FA Cup, which means a top six place.

“For one reason or another we are six points short of what we deserve this season. It has not really happened to my team before where refereeing performances have cost us points –but 100 per cent we have dropped points because of referees.

“I’m not saying it’s just referees because it’s our fault we have dropped points as well from our performances.

“But it’s a shame given the effort we went to, to embrace referees in pre-season and work with them, that this has happened. I guess the points will level themselves out over the season.

“It wasn’t our greatest performance (against Bilston). We played really well against Black Country Rangers (a 2-2 draw last month) and Tividale. We probably deserved three points in both of those games. It was good to get three points against Bilston but we would have liked a better performance.”

Next up for Casuals is a trip on Saturday to Cradley Town.

Cradley, who lost 1-0 to Hereford at the weekend, have endured a poor start to the season and appointed Chris Butts as their new manager last month after Ashley Causer stepped down.

Black Country Rangers extended their unbeaten run to 10 games and climbed back into pole position after beating Pegasus Juniors 2-1 away.

They had to come from behind after conceding on 15 minutes but scored two goals in 60 seconds just after the hour mark, with Matthew Vaughan grabbing the first and Hayden Hughes the second.

Tividale slipped to second following a 1-1 draw at Malvern Town which ended in dramatic fashion.

The home led 1-0 at half-time, but were down to nine men with eight minutes to go following two red cards. Then Ben Birch headed home a corner in the 96th minute to seal a hard-fought draw for Tividale, who host Bewdley tomorrow.

Boss Dave King said: “It was a poor performance from us and we weren’t fast out of the blocks. But we have been playing high-quality competition lately and I think that has taken its toll on us. My lads, as always, kept going until the end and it was an unbelievable point.”

Dudley Town earned a point after a goalless draw with Dudley Sports on Saturday. They travel to Shawbury United tomorrow in their next league fixture. Elsewhere, Bewdley Town thumped Shawbury United 5-0 while Smethwick Rangers were thrashed 8-0 by Haughmond.