It’s never nice to see a football club relieve a manager of his duties, but it probably came as no surprise to many when Heacham Football Club did just that last week, announcing that Mark Hunter would be leaving the club following a very difficult start to the Eastern Counties League (ECL) Premier Division season.

Just one win and twelve defeats from their opening 13 games tells its own story for a side who, over the past few seasons, have enjoyed a tremendous ride that has seen them secure multiple promotions from Anglian Combination level right through to their current Step Five status - just three levels below King’s Lynn Town.

The ECL is renowned for being a very difficult level of football to compete at and, to me, the league appears to be the most competitive it’s been for many years.

Fenland neighbours March Town United and Wisbech Town rejoined the ECL in the summer following a few seasons away, and when you add in existing teams such as Dereham Town, Stowmarket Town and Soham Town Rangers, you can see that there is never anything other than a competitive game, week in, week out.

Many sides are also able to call upon some very experienced players at this level and, with the Magpies’ squad being made up mainly of young talent for the future, the task was always going to be a difficult one.

There are a good few talented youngsters at the club who will become excellent players in the not-too-distant future, but they need both time and patience to develop and become the backbone of the team.

I do have a lot of sympathy for Mark Hunter, who was a very popular figure at the club, if social media is to be believed, and who worked tirelessly to turn the situation around.

Despite their difficult start, the club still has a very good chance of moving away from the league’s relegation positions if they can turn things around with a new management team at the helm.

The season is still at a relatively early stage and, with an upturn in form and a little more luck, which is always important, I see no reason why things cannot improve.

Heacham Football Club is an extremely well-run outfit, led by people who care deeply about the club and its place in the community.

On my visits, I’ve always been made very welcome by those people, and they all deserve nothing less than a few wins and a steady climb up the league over the coming months.

I wish them all well.

Linnets making good progress

It’s a sign of how King’s Lynn Town have progressed since the start of the season that, when listening to manager Paul Caddis’s post-match thoughts at the weekend, there was a sense of personal disappointment from the Lynn boss that his team hadn’t collected all three points from their long trip to Merthyr Town.

A point gained in Wales at the start of the season would, I suspect, have been treated almost like a victory, but things under Caddis appear to have changed greatly, with the Lynn boss expressing both his own and his players’ frustration at not winning the game after coming from a goal behind to share the spoils in a 1-1 draw.

Lynn’s boss has been at great pains to speak about the mentality of his squad and those who work behind the scenes, and it is an area where there appears to have been a big improvement, something that has been clear to see, especially in the last few weeks.

There’s no doubt that last term’s trials and tribulations took their toll on many at the Docherty Walks Stadium, and it is pleasing to see that, this time around, it’s the action on the pitch that is capturing all the headlines, as opposed to what is, or isn’t, happening away from it.

It’s that kind of total focus that has helped the Linnets move away from being a bit of a soft touch to a side now rightly feared by their National League North rivals.

It has also helped the club rediscover its identity, not only with its supporters but with the town as a whole.

The club now finds itself in the play-off places and, with just one defeat in their last seven league matches, the mentality factor that Caddis sees as so crucial to the continued upward movement of the club must be as high as it possibly can be.

The visit of a Southport side currently occupying one of the four relegation positions in the league table to the Docherty Walks Stadium this Saturday appears, on paper at least, to provide the Linnets with another good chance of collecting maximum points and, in the process, consolidating their own position towards the top of the table.

A win would also provide a third successive home victory, which would help maintain the momentum of making the Walks something of a fortress in the eyes of visiting teams in the weeks and months to come.

Following this weekend, Town travel to Worksop Town next Tuesday before what can now certainly be described as a mouthwatering visit to Caddis’s former club, Hereford, who have also made a good start to the season, on the final Saturday of the month.

Last weekend’s National League North fixture programme was rather truncated, with a handful of the league’s teams involved in the fourth and final qualifying round of the FA Cup, many of whom were hopeful of making it into the draw for the first round of the competition, which took place on Monday evening.

It was a mixed afternoon, to say the least, for some of the Linnets’ league rivals, with Marine taking the ‘shock providers’ tag following a 2-0 win at Hartlepool.

Former Lynn boss Adam Lakeland was on the wrong end of a cup upset as his Morecambe outfit surprisingly lost at AFC Rushden & Diamonds.

Oxford City won by a single goal at Torquay, whilst Spalding United faced a replay at Alvechurch last evening (Tuesday) after being held to a 2-2 draw by their Southern League opponents.

The Linnets’ conquerors from a couple of rounds ago, Bedford Town, were held to a 0-0 draw by Cray Wanderers and were also due to replay their fixture last evening.