“If this is the worst start of a season for the club in a long time than I’m pleased”, stated North Village striker Keishen Bean on the club’s first half of the season.One of only a handful of teams expected to contend for the Premier Division title each season, Village looked a shadow of their former selves early in the season after losing three of their opening five games.Expectations were low around the club this season given the inexperienced players in the squad taking the place of veterans that had called time on their careers.They are, however, within striking distance of the top, currently sitting in fifth place and six points off the top, a place that Bean feels is a good spot for the side to be in.“I am still optimistic about the season, everyone had written us off given the squad we have but when you look at the standings we are still in with a realistic chance of winning the league.“I’m pleased with the effort put forth by the guys, they are all young players coming through and me being one of the senior players now I am happy with how they are applying themselves.“When you look at previous year we were usually one of, if not the team to beat and it was like a burden on us to go out and perform. This time around no one seemed to give us a fighting chance to get among the leaders and they have to remember that this club will always fight until the end.”The likes of Sammy DeGraff, Vernon Tankard, and Kofi Dill have been replaced with Corey Boyce, Patraic Castle, and Khomeini Talbot, a vast gulf in experience.Yet, for all the shake-ups Shaun Goater has done the side were still in the Dudley Eve final, narrowly losing to Somerset Trojans and silencing critics with their convincing win over defending league champions Dandy Town.The three points helped position them a second half run at the title.Not getting ahead of himself, Bean is anxious to get the second half of the season underway as the ‘dark horse’ is ready to make inroads to those above them.“The favourites tags makes teams slacken off a bit when you have it so many times, but now every week we go up against that on paper is better then us and it gives us a real incentive to go out and perform, it’s something different.“We are only six points back and still have to play everyone so we can still pull off a title push, this is one of our worst starts to a season so if that’s the case then I’m happy with where we are.“Most teams would be fighting relegation if they were in our shoes and the team we have but we have been through the worst and we are still in the mix so we will see how the second half kicks off.”