Denton: '˜People will be interested in Tigers jobs, but I'd love to stay on'

Denton and first team manager Jon Kennedy agreed to stay on until the end of the season last week after the dismissal of Mark Shaw.

And Denton believes their appointments will benefit the players who will thrive off of the stability for the remaining two months.

Tigers have two local derbies at home in the space of five days with AFC Mansfield then landlords Handsworth Parramore at Sandy Lane.

Denton said: “It’s really nice to be part of a huge club like Worksop Town. Taking the assistant manager’s role with Jon Kennedy as first team manager is exciting. It’ll help us plan more for each and every game as it comes and not on things off the pitch.

“It is a comfort in terms of you know where you stand in the dressing room. The club was going through a situation with Mark Shaw and that had to be sorted before they could give anyone the title of first team manager.

“I was working on a weekly basis with Jon and he told me the club would like to give us the opportunity until the end of the season. It was something we both wanted and grabbed with both hands. With the budget cuts, it’s created some stability.

“It’s also nice for the players to know there won’t be a lot of changes happening in a short term. It’s about taking every game and every week as it comes as we focus on our next opponents.”

Denton and Kennedy have looked after first team affairs since the end of November and have won eight of their 14 NCEL Premier matches.

“The club have not indicated (anything permanent beyond end of the season),” said Denton. “We’re going to see how it goes until the end of the season. It would be silly for me to deny I’d want to be involved in some capacity next season. I guess Jon feels the same.

“There are going to be lots of people interested in the job from non-league managers and coaches because of the club, Worksop Town. Hopefully, we’ve created that stability and picked up some good points in recent times.

“I’m not going to deny I would love to be involved in some capacity. If it was assistant manager, that would be fantastic, but I can’t speak on behalf of the club. I can only speak on behalf of myself.”

Their attention is now fully-focused on the arrival of Nottinghamshire neighbours AFC Mansfield on Saturday (March 11), who are two points better off and seventh in the standings.

Denton said: “They’re going well this season and got some very good players in their starting eleven and their squad. They’ve got an experienced manager who has been able to recruit really well this season. But results have gone for them and against them.

“We’re not going into it expecting to be the underdog but, because of the amount of budget cuts, we do go into most games as underdogs and people don’t expect us to pick up as many points. We’ve got a good group of lads.

“They’re all really focused on the job ahead. Their performances to Pickering and Cleethorpes are really good ones. We’ve competed throughout. The scoreline maybe hasn’t reflected that but certainly against Pickering we matched them.”

Adam Scott sustained a slight knock against Cleethorpes but is expected to be back in training this week and in contention for Saturday.

Denton added: “We don’t fear anyone but AFC Mansfield will be ready, as will we. When you go into the game and you look at the depth of our squad, the sense of togetherness in the dressing room and the focus from each player, it’s no surprise we’ve done well.

“They all have personal standards. People may forget that sometimes; these lads aren’t just playing for Worksop Town, they’re also playing for their individual personal standards. It could be quite easy for them to roll over but that’s not their mentality.

“They want to win every game.

“When we go up against teams with much bigger budgets than us, it is an incentive for us, we go into each and every game wanting to collect three points and that was the focus when we were away to Cleethorpes on a wet Wednesday night.

“We were limited on numbers, a lot of people were unavailable, and we went there with two subs. We went one up after ten minutes. The players we’ve got at the club have shown a real strength of togetherness and that can only serve us well.”