Lancaster City won't change contract model after unprecedented injury-hit season

Dolly Blues boss Mark Fell has endured a challenging campaign with his squad hit by an abnormal amount of injuries, certainly in the first half of the season.

On more than 350 occasions, the City manager has been prevented from picking a player due to injury.

Many of those on the casualty list were players who had signed contracts with the club at the start of the season.

Not only was Fell robbed of picking some of his best players, he was also prevented from delving into the transfer market to sign players to replace his injured stars.

The club was still committed to paying their players on contracts and so therefore had limited financial resources to bring in other players.

However, Fell believes the club’s injury record this season was just plain bad luck – the like of which will not be seen again.

He insists there is still merit to securing players on long-term deals, but it maybe that the Dolly Blues will look to adapt their contract policy in the future.

Fell held positive discussions with the Board of directors this week ahead of this weekend’s final game of the NPL Premier Division season against Guiseley at Giant Axe.

He said: You can’t really win. Do you not have players on contract and then run the risk of losing them, especially if you’re in a good position?

"If you look at the contract situation with Liam Brockbank, that helped us because we were able to sell him last summer.

"I don’t think you can ever get it completely right. I just think this season we have been party to such extraordinary circumstances that it feels like we need to do something that we probably don’t need to.

"I don’t think we will have another season like this but the club has to be aware. We probably have to show a little more due diligence with regards to contracts. Will it be that we have players over the age of 30,32 on a contract? probably not. It’s about protecting an asset which could be worth something in the future.

"I don’t think we will be changing the model but contracts will be done on a case by case basis.”

Fell will be speaking to his squad about his plans for the future over the next couple of weeks.