Having put in the hard yards, goalkeeper, Will Highland, was rewarded with an opportunity to show what he could do at Step 3 with Barwell over the summer and so far, he is grabbing the chance with both hands.
The 27 year-old was part of the youth ranks at former club, Hinckley Leicester Road, and quickly progressed into the first-team, playing in their inaugural fixture in August 2014 before becoming one of the most successful players in the club’s history over the next decade.
Amassing almost 400 senior appearances, in which he kept 132 clean sheets and played his part in three promotions, it was a difficult decision to leave the club, but the lure of the Pitching In Southern League Premier Central proved too great.
“It was a really tough decision to leave,” he admitted to us. “I have some really special memories from the past decade and met so many great people along the way, but the time was right to seek a new challenge and test myself at a higher level.
“It took me a couple of games to adjust but I now feel that I am starting to really find my feet. It’s been hard work and there is plenty more to come, but it’s certainly worth it.
“The team is starting to finally click together now; we have some extremely talented individuals, but they are starting to form together as a team thanks to the hard work that we are all putting in.
“I am over the moon to have kept successive clean sheets in my last two games having followed up our 4-0 victory over Hitchin Town, which gave us our first League win, with a 3-0 FA Cup win against Kidsgrove Athletic at the weekend.
“The lads did really well on both occasions and hopefully we can build on this now and kick-on from here.
“It would be nice to have a bit of a run in both the FA Cup and the FA Trophy and get up into the top half of the table.
“This is strong League with some good teams, but we’re all capable of beating each other on our day, so it makes for an exciting competition.
“Our aim is to finish as high as we can. We set various team targets as we go along to keep us all on our toes, but for me personally I try to keep as many clean sheets as I possibly can and three in a row would be nice, I suppose it’s a similar achievement to a striker scoring a hat-trick.”
Highland’s next clean sheet challenge comes at high-flying Stourbridge on Friday evening.
IMAGE: Chris Simpson
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