Marc Mortlock’s Development side suffered late heartbreak as they rounded off their season with defeat at SCEFL side Lordswood on Tuesday night.
An entertaining, if feisty, affair saw “The Lords” withstand a gritty Millers fightback to secure victory in a seven goal thriller.
Lordswood took the lead in the 18th minute courtesy of a far post header from a corner, before The Millers equalised five minutes later. Harrison Kempston’s free kick was saved by the keeper onto the inside of the post and Kyle Norman following up converted on the goal line.
The hosts regained the lead after 27 minutes, before missing a penalty before half time – the ball striking the top of the crossbar and over.
After Lordswood extended their advantage ten minutes into the second half, Valley pulled one back with a good finish from a “trialist”.
Lewis Cotter converted a penalty five minutes from time to restore parity for the visitors, before a powerful 90th minute free kick finally won the game for the hosts.
“It was good to bring our season to an end with the tough challenge of playing against Lordswood - the highest ranked side we’ve put our young side up against”, reflected Mortlock

As the curtain came down on this strangest of seasons for his young team, Development Team Manager Mortlock reflected on what has been a challenging eight months for his young players.
An early October start saw The Millers lads play four matches in the Isthmian Development League South Division – surprisingly all at home -, winning two (one of which was an exciting 5-0 demolition of East Grinstead Town), with a draw and 3-0 defeat to Herne Bay.

As anyone who has seen the Development side play will testify, they play a brand of football which is pleasing on the eye – treating the football as something to be caressed and valued rather than an imposter.
“The Under23 Development League is very tactical but it’s not as physical as Step 6 football.” said Mortlock. “The level of players technically is very good, but we feel that pushing the lads into Step 6 will develop other sides of their game and put them in a better shape to move on to our first team or beyond.
The break from the league gave us a chance to try players in new positions. One such beneficiary, Lewis Cotter has moved into a centre half position and looked very good - we feel it’s giving him a new challenge to work on the defensive side of his game, while more time on the ball enables him to play more forward passes.
We’ve also been extremely lucky to have three ex pros coming in to play alongside our lads. A massive thank you must go to Kevin Lisbie, Gavin Tomlin and Bradley Prichard - having these guys around the dressing room and talking the lads through games is worth fifty training sessions. We’re blessed to have people like that giving up their time for us.”

Mortlock firmly believes that a move to Step 6 football would benefit his players. “With hopes of putting this young side into Step 6 next season, we’ve taken the last few weeks to play sides in and around that level to see how the players adapt and cope. It’s been really interesting to see how they’ve dealt with a more physical game.”

To clarify Marc's comments David Carter the club's match secretary said "The club did submit an application to put a reserve side into step 6 for next season, however, it looks as if this will not be possible at this time. Marc is doing a terrific job with the development side and I am sure the young lads will continue to progress, always a joy to watch."

The introduction of Louis Dean to run the Youth Development section of the Club has increased the pool of young talent available. Marc Mortlock continues “We’ve had a look at a few more of our outstanding Under 18’s lads – Jack Beerling made his 1st team debut last week at 16 and played very well. Jude Salmon has come in, again at 16, and looked very comfortable while Harry Hooper and Lateef Adaja were also back in the squad tonight. Another 16 year old, Alex Nika has played in goal and done very well so he was also back with us. Louis Dean is doing a fantastic job producing so many talented youngsters who are now putting pressure on our lads, which is what we want.
Harrison Kempston also made his debut for the 1st team last week - we feel there is a lot more to come from him, but he has struggled to get match fit as he keeps picking up muscle injuries. We,re hoping a break will help him recover and have a full pre-season.
The Lisbie twins – Kyrell and Kyreece - are both progressing really well. Aged 17, both have been involved with the first team and have very bright futures.
Josiah Jones has come back after 6 months out injured and is looking better game by game, while Aziz Sankoh also made a 1st team appearance last week and again we are happy with his progress.
So overall, we are really happy with our lads and looking forward to what next season will bring - I’m also looking forward to a break.
Covid has stopped a lot of development for all the young players we have at the Club and it’s been such a shame they’ve missed a year of playing.
As a club we took the stance not to rejoin the youth leagues when they restarted after lockdown, as we felt that one week training wasn’t enough to build strength and conditioning to play. Looking on Twitter at the amount of injuries picked up, we feel we made the right decision to protect the boys.

So here’s to a full season going ahead”.

And so say all of us Marc……………….

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