Defender Alex Low added leadership to Glasshoughton Welfare defence

Alex Low

By James Grayson (Twitter: @jamesAgrayson)

Glasshoughton Welfare manager Rob Hunter has praised his new defensive signing Alex Low.

Lowe made his debut for Welfare at Garforth Town on Bank Holiday Monday and made a telling contribution to Hunter’s side’s first victory of the Toolstation NCEL Premier Division season.
Hunter, who takes his side to Liversedge on Saturday, was impressed and said Low added a much-needed element to his team.
“He’s been training with Harrogate Railway in the summer and he captained Wembley last season,” he said.
“He’s from York and he was down there on a placement from University. He has come back this summer and I got wind he was available.

“I have got a great relationship with Billy Miller and (assistant) Lee Ashforth at Harrogate Railway. Ash rang me the other week to say he was available if I wanted to have a look at him.

“He said he was a right-back, but I said I didn’t need a right-back because I’ve got three at the moment. It actually turned out that he’s actually a centre-half who had been playing at right-back.

“I thought he was outstanding on Monday.

“We have Ally Wilson and Reece Chappell who are both solid centre-halves at this level, but slightly inexperienced and there’s not been a lot of communication in our back four recently.

“It is a very young back four and we were just missing that little bit of leadership and communication and Alex brought that to the team on Monday.”

Goals from Calum Ward and debutant Danny Middleton gave Glasshoughton a 2-1 victory at Wheatley Park and Hunter admits he was relieved at picking up their first points of the campaign.

“The first points are always the hardest and it didn’t help that our first game was on a Wednesday night at Staveley after Staveley had already played on the Saturday,” he said.

“Then we were in the FA Cup against a tough team in Jarrow and then we went to Barton and got beat. That’s when you start to get doubts in your head and before you know it you’re making decisions you shouldn’t be making.

“I made a big effort on Monday morning and when I rung (assistant) Mark Smitheringale I said: ‘let’s not make any panic decisions because we haven’t won a game in the first three and lets settle down because we believe in the way we play’.

“I think we played well at Garforth.”