Elsdon Enjoying Life at Clyde
Recent signing Matthew Elsdon spoke to the official website this week and reflected on his time as a Clyde player so far:-
“I can’t believe I’ve only been at the club for a few weeks, it feels like I’ve played here for a few years! I’m settling in just fine and think I’ve fitted in nicely in the dressing room. All the lads are spot on and the manager and backroom team have been very welcoming too.”
The 24-year-old initially signed on amateur forms, but has since put pen to paper on a professional contract until the end of the season:-
“A friend of mine has a business up here and knows the gaffer. Danny got in touch with me on the Monday before the Broomhill game and invited me up to training that night. He wanted to have a further look at me so I signed an amateur contract so I could play in the Broomhill game on Wednesday, then agreed to come back up for the Alloa match on Saturday, and we’ve just taken things from there.
“I stay in the north east of England and travel up on the Thursday for training, stay over Thursday and Friday nights then go back down the road after the match on Saturday. I do a bit of coaching as my day job so I’m able to fit my commitments in around that.”
Elsdon progressed through the ranks at Middlesbrough’s academy and came face-to-face with a few famous names in his early days, before having a frustating campaign last year:-
“I loved my time at Middlesbrough. My age group won the Under-18 Premier League, beating Chelsea and Man City, and we qualified for the UEFA Youth League. That was a great experience; we beat Torino and got to the quarter-finals where we lost narrowly to Paris Saint-Germain, who had Odsonne Edouard playing for them. I’ve played against Wayne Rooney and Adnan Januzaj when they were with Man Utd in the Under-23 League too.
“I spent last season with Blyth Spartans and that’s the first time I had dropped to part-time level. We started the league season later than usual, around October time but we only played 14 games before it got cancelled. The match against Broomhill was my first game since the end of December, and then I had to play again on the Saturday!”
cinch League 1 is a new environment for the Englishman:-
“I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard much of Clyde before I signed! I had a loan spell with Inverness a few years ago so know most of the Premiership and Championship teams, but Clyde were further down the divisions then.
“I tend not to look too much into the opposition, so it probably helps in a way that I don’t really know who I’m coming up against, but I’m not phased. The lads said Rory McAllister and Mitch Megginson were two of the better strikers in the league, but I thought we handled them quite well on Saturday.
“We only worked on a back three at training on Thursday night. I thought it worked out really well during the game with Conrad in the middle, he pulled me and Scotty around with his experience and talked us through the game. The previous few matches we’ve played with a back four and one up top and spent a lot of time defending, then when we won the ball back we only had one target to hit. With Ross up top on Saturday too I felt we were more dangerous and caught them a few times on the break.”
Elsdon had to watch the last couple of minutes of Saturday’s game nervously from the sidelines after picking up a red card:-
“I was caught slightly off guard, it came from our kick out and I didn’t expect their defender to head it back that far! It was just an instinct thing to put my arm out, but if I didn’t he might have been in to score which would have been worse for the team.
“It’ll be disappointing to be missing Peterhead but hopefully the lads can use the last result and get some momentum going. It’s been a bit up and down but we need to go on a good run and string a few wins together, and hopefully it’ll be a perfect opportunity.”
Matty finished with a word for the Clyde supporters:-
“It’s always nice to have fans on your side and it’s great to play in front of crowds again. The Clyde support have been spot on in the two home games so far and they made some amount of noise at Falkirk too.”