Ebanks injury rules him out for season
A BROKEN bone in his foot looks set to end Stratford Town striker Callum Ebanks’ season with the club predicting he could be out of action for up to 12 weeks.
The former Cheltenham Town forward is the Bards’ leading scorer with 21 goals this season and was challenging for the league’s golden boot award.
He was on crutches and on the sidelines for Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Southern League Premier Central play-off rivals Redditch United, a result that threw the chase for a top five five spot wide open.
With three games to play, the Bards currently lie fourth on 65 points. Leamington complete the play-off places on 64 points with Redditch (63pts) and Stamford (60pts) also in the reckoning with the latter also having a game in hand.
Needham Market were crowned champions on Saturday and Mickleover and AFCTelford United are secure in second and third.
Missed chances coupled with a defensive blunder led to defeat against their local rivals at the weekend and assistant manager Lee Vaughan admits that the loss of their star striker is going to have an impact on the team.
He said: “It would have been different if Callum Ebanks was playing but he wasn’t and we have to deal with that now.
“We will have to change the way we play slightly but we have still have enough good players in the squad to ensure that we get promoted out of this division. There is more than enough in the dressing room to not only get in the play-offs but to win the play-offs.
“We need to prepare to be without Callum for the rest of the season. It’s a big loss obviously because he is the most ruthless striker in the division and if you take someone like that out of any team it will hurt.”
Vaughan was critical of Stratford’s first half display and it was only when Alex Cameron scored for the visitors that they came to life.
He added: “I don’t think we were anywhere near our levels in the first half, it was a really disappointing 45 minutes. We lacked intensity and it looked like a pre-season friendly on our part. They were there for the taking after losing six games on the bounce. We should have done a job on them but we never did.
“We wanted a ruthless mentality and we wanted to kick a dog when they’re down but we certainly didn’t do that. Having said that we have had more than enough opportunities to score.
“On the whole, I thought we deserved to get something out of the game but part of me is glad that we never because you cannot just turn up like that and underperform for 45 minutes in front of another good crowd. We need to put it right.
“It wasn’t the sort of display that me and Gav want from our football team – we want to see front foot football and that certainly wasn’t front foot football.
“It was as if we needed a smack in the mouth to wake us up and we got that when they scored.
“Redditch have done us twice now and I know what this group of players is like and that will hurt them so we have to put things right quickly.”
Stratford are at Mickleover on Saturday (ko 3pm).
