Cardiff Dracs have earned themselves a healthy lead at the top of the Ardal South West at Christmas.
They are three points and four games in hand over second placed Cefn Cribwr. The two sides were due to meet in a top of the table clash just before the big day but unfortunately it was postponed due to the weather.
Dracs manager Nana Baah is known for his unique personality within the Welsh lower leagues and has a Welsh League Division One title win on his CV with Caerau Ely. Such is the nature of Welsh football, they ended up not being able to play in the league due to not being able to meet regulations off the field.
Baah has developed a reputation over the years for building teams with a strong togetherness and a strong mentality that gets them results, while also playing some good football.
Like his experience at Caerau Ely, there is a chance that even if Dracs win the league, they may not get promoted due to not meeting requirements for tier two football. Baah spoke about what is being done to rectify this and referred back to his previous experience in 2015.
“In terms of off field, in fairness to the committee, we’ve looked at the tier two stuff,” said Baah who was addressing the difficulties they will have to overcome to achieve a Tier Two licence.
“We know initially it will be rejected because that’s what we expect. So in fairness, we were working really hard to look at elements and what we need to do.
“We’ve put contingencies in place as well. So in terms of off the field, that’s all going to be sorted.
“It’s down to the players now to produce what they need to produce, because I think that whole team only two players, Jordan Coles and Jamal Roberts have ever won the league title.
“It’s something good to aim for. And if they don’t get there, then at least they tried.
“I think they’ll be gutted if you don’t achieve that. But at the same time, it’s a long, long way to go. A long way to go.
“When we didn’t go up at Caerau, the year we won it, we didn’t even think we were in a title, you know, it wasn’t even on our radar.
“We weren’t even thinking about it. We’re going: “Boys, I think we might do this, you know”, and there’s one of those things and we were nowhere near ready for that.
“I think that’s taught me a lot in terms of making sure when I went to the Dracs, making sure that’s what they wanted as well.
“I know we had a three-year plan and we’re ahead of schedule at the moment, but it was deflating.”
Teamwork makes dreamwork at Cardiff Dracs
As manager he has the bulk of responsibility on the pitch, but Nana believes that success is down to more than just his work.
He added: “In real truth, it’s a team effort. I’m not going to sit here and say I do it all by myself and that I do it all on my own because I’ve done that before.
“I’m quite fortunate that I’m in a position where I’ve got really good coaches and really good people around me.
“I’ve got two brilliant coaches in Smithy (Paul Smith) and Ben (Hartery) and the two of them, the sessions they put on for the boys and the detail they give them is brilliant.
“In reality all I’ve got to do is manage the players and manage what we do and things.”
Having been a manager for over a decade now, and with plenty of success, he spoke about his style of play and how it has changed over the years.
“I say it’s intensity energy, pressing, having that mindset of never losing but also trying to play good football, being effective in our good football,” he stated.
“It’s interesting really, because I worked with Craig Sampson. It’s a phrase he used to use a lot in terms of ‘be like robots’, and as a manager, when you work with different people, you pick up little bits and bobs.
“So we look at an element of acting like robots but then at the same time, making sure we give them that creativity as well to do what they want in the final third.
“It has changed a lot. I think initially, I was quite at all about encouraging, encouraging, encouraging and when you’re doing well, it’s easy to do that.
“And when things aren’t going well, you kind of get a little bit angrier and you don’t put out information that you give.
“I’d probably say after I’ve won the league, I’d say the quality of my management style probably went downhill a little bit.
“Not because I wasn’t good enough, but I think I was a bit lost and trying to replicate what I did at Caerau wherever I went, which was wrong, really, because the players weren’t the same and the mindset wasn’t the same and the dynamics wasn’t the same.”
When playing, the former Barry Town striker was known as someone willing to do the dirty work and be part of a team more than playing for himself. He believes has rubbed off on his management style.
“I gave everything when I was a player, I always knew my role,” he admitted.
“I just never gave up. I wasn’t all about the plaudits.
“I mean, when I was at Dinas, it was about the ball coming to me, hold it up and set or flick it on to Drew Fahiya or Shelton (Payne).
“I was like that as a player, I guess I expect that from my players as well in terms of I love playing football, I enjoyed it so much.
“I just can’t understand why you wouldn’t give it even if you’re tired, you’re injured, if you’re able to get on that pitch why wouldn’t you?
“Why wouldn’t you if you got a tackle not smash someone and and enjoy it?”
Young defender Oscar Raisbeck left Dracs earlier on in the year to move to Germany. Talking about the move and how it came about, his former manager said.
“I’ve quite a lot of contacts around the world,” he said.
“It’s just there’s always know someone and one of my good friends knows one of the coaches there.
“So I said, look, have a chat with him, we’ll put a video together from my Veo’s and we’ll send a profile and I said: “Look you trust me as a manager in terms of I know my players and so trust me this kid is good” so they had him for four week trial, after two weeks they wanted to sign him
“He’s doing really, really well, he’s with the first team, a lot of the time, which is massive for him, because he is doing it as a professional, you know, it’s training three, four times a week.
“It’s brilliant for him. But yeah, that’s how he really worked out, just knowing the right people.”
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