RATHER than fixating on negativity around their club, manager Danny Searle says he is keen for everyone connected with Braintree Town to foster a positive environment at the club.

Speaking at an open meeting with Iron supporters this week, Searle addressed the mindset that he felt fans and staff needed to have to see progress at Cressing Road in the future.

He acknowledged that it had been a difficult season on the pitch, but despite the disappointment of where they found themselves in the National League table, he asked fans to look at what had been achieved this year rather than focusing on negatives.

“The more time you spend on the negatives, the more miserable your life becomes,” he said.

“So we can flip and say the league season is what it is and we’ll finish where we finish but let’s celebrate some of the things we have achieved this season.

“You have a team like Salford, who spend three and a half million pounds on their budget and they couldn’t beat us this year.

“Let’s celebrate we have the youngest average age of team in the top five divisions – no-one has a team as young as us.

“Celebrate that Shane Temple is the youngest debutant in the top five leagues from the Premier League down this season.

“Those are the things I’m looking at as positives.

“We have had clubs come in and take our players and you can look at that as a negative but you can also look at that and see it as a compliment.

“The fact is that Braintree Town is nurturing these players.

“The chairman made a great point about Ben Killip; when he came to Braintree he wasn’t an England goalkeeper, but now he has two caps.

“We have developed that and you as fans have travelled up and down the country to make sure there’s someone clapping him when he makes a great save.

“We should all be proud of that development.

“I want to change mindsets as it’s pointless banging on about what we haven’t achieved.

“That’s blatantly obvious and anyone can see where we’ve fallen short this year, but from within the football club, we can see that we have done really well.”

He added: “We will give you everything we have got from a playing perspective with the support from the board but what we ask for in return is an element of realism about where we really are.

“An appreciation of the achievements we have made this season because we have had some great achievements.

“There have been some real highs this year; granted there have been some real lows but there have been some real highs and I just want to look at the positives.

“People may say what’s there to be positive about, but from my perspective, what’s the point in moaning about it?

“Forget about what everyone else is doing and how they run their clubs.

“Yes, we’ll nick some good ideas from people if we can and it makes us better but it’s about us.

“Sometimes you get caught up so much in thinking about what everyone else has got that you lose sight of what you have got.”