Ben Clark takes post match duties instead of Lee Cattermole after Gateshead lose 4-0 to Wealdstone

First team coach Ben Clark takes post match duties instead of Lee Cattermole after Gateshead lose 4-0 to Wealdstone.

The 100 Gateshead fans made the long trip down south, and following the game, were heard singing “You’re getting sacked in the morning”.

It is now an eighth defeat out of the opening 10 National League games, leaving Gateshead bottom with 4 points.

Thanks to goals from Olufela Olomola (22′), Luje Norris (33′ pen), Jack Wells-Morrison (47′) and Jack Cook (84′), Wealdstone are 17th with 11 points after 10 games.

After the game, Ben Clark said: “I thought we started the game well first half, started the game well. Couple of chances. Luke looked lively. David was causing problems up front. Jordy on the wings and then just achilles heel at the minute. We conceded a soft goal and obviously you can see confidence at the minute. The lads are are struggling a bit with the confidence and to be fair you know another goal after that apparently, you know, we struggled from from there on in really.

Interviewer: Yeah. I mean, like you say there, the start obviously was positive having a few chances early on and then when the first goal went in the the sort of tide of the game changed a little wheels and started to get a bit more of a a foothold. Is it that confidence thing like you say that when you’re down the bottom results aren’t going your way, it’s maybe a bit easier to to get on yourself when you know you go a goal down or two nil down.

Ben: Yeah, I think it is. I think confidence is massive in all walks of life really and I think you know if we we score when we’re on top becomes a different game. But you know we’ve got to just keep working hard. Uh players have got to look at themselves and can they do better, we’ll continue to keep working hard and that’s all you can do. Yeah confidence is low at the moment but uh the only way you get get it back is by getting a win and we’ll have to just keep training hard and hopefully results will change really quickly.

Interviewer: Yeah. And you talk about trying to bounce back and get away and obviously you’ve got two opportunities I suppose next week both at home as well to to try and do that as well.

Ben: Yeah, two two home games coming up, got to try and get a win somehow, no matter how it looks, I think the players and us will reflect and we just need everyone to pull together and hopefully we can get that win and start climbing the table, get confidence back and get a feelgood factor around the whole club.

Here’s what supporter Dan Bell @TheDB30 had to say as Ben Clark takes post match duties instead of Lee Cattermole after Gateshead lose 4-0 to Wealdstone…

@TheDB30: He didn’t even look at the fans, let alone clap or come over. Spineless. Only member of coaching staff that did come over was Clarky, that in itself tells you who has the club truly at heart. Get him gone, there’s some managers who’d lay into their players for that behaviour.

In his video, he said: “The result is one thing, but there’s managers out there that would go absolutely off it with their players if they refuse to acknowledge the supporters that have travelled a long way to watch them get absolutely hammered.

“I remembered there was a Bunch of Amateurs episode a few years ago, wasn’t there, where I think Dorking lost 4-1 at Altrincham or somewhere like that and there’s a couple of their players refused to go over to the supporters at the end of the game and Marc White just went absolutely off it with them in the changing room and that is the example that Lee Cattermole’s setting there today and like a clear message to the Gateshead board here.

“You have got to do right by this football club and you’ve got to do it soon because you are losing fans by the week and like the and no football club in the world would survive without its supporters and like the drop in attendance each week.

“The club only have themselves to blame for that. But the fact that the only member of the coaching staff that came over to us after the game today was Ben Clark, that tells you everything that you need to know.

“And like I have never ever seen such a level of disconnect between the fans and any Gateshead manager in the entire time that I’ve been watching this football club, like I’ve never ever known anything like this and it is for me it’s just so sad to see.

“I mean the performance itself today was an absolute disgrace and don’t get me wrong, the players are in no way blameless because they’re the ones that are going out onto the pitch and they’re trying to get results but again they are being drowned out by a system that just does not work whatsoever.

“All the toxicity that’s going on within this football club at this moment in time. They’re in a near impossible situation. I’ve just seen there just before I started recording Ben Clark has actually done the post match interview today. It’s always always been Lee Cattermole himself up until today. So, is that a sign of things to come? I mean, we certainly need a change within this football club because like right now we are going down with a whimper and where it’s going right now we could be officially relegated in record time for the National League.

“He’s got four points from a possible 30, he has to go and like we are now 10 games without a win. Obviously including the games in the Mickey Mouse Cup as well, eight games without a win if you don’t want to include them. And the only reason that statistic won’t be getting as much press now as what the losing run of last year did is because obviously we have had a draw thrown in there. An extremely lucky draw in that I must say.

“So it is well and truly worse than what it was this time last not this time, not quite this time last year, but, when we’re on that that 16 game losing run and you’re kidding yourself on if if you think otherwise, I mean, with all due respect to Wealdstone, that is a team that, in my personal opinion, you know, we should be able to compete with at the very least whether we beat them, lose them, or draw some, whatever, is irrelevant. At the very least, we should be able to compete with them, but that was like a training session for them today.”