Calm and continuity, calm and consistency, whatever way you bracket the word, Bandy would just like the kind of calm that would allow himself and partner Lloyd Morrison to get on with their job without having to grapple with problem after problem.
It’s an ethos he’s trying to embrace all round. Following events in his private life the Surrey Street co-boss has made himself a calmer figure in the dug-out. He now has much more of a life’s-too-short attitude, and has accepted that anger and frustration will never succeed in getting a referee to change a decision.
Band’s biggest bugbear is keeping his best players knowing that richer clubs are constantly circling and waiting to snatch them away. It’s a problem the Hillmen have had to live with for decades. Thirty years ago, then-manager John Birchall went to great lengths to keep his team out of the headlines and would have preferred a world without match reports.
“Whenever you find somebody half-decent, you know somebody will pinch them from you. It’s part and parcel of life in the Evo-stik League. If you find good players you’re going to lose them,” Band explained.
“I’d like to keep 70 to 80 per cent of the squad we had at the end of the season because we were starting to pick up results but Matty Russell has already left us for Colwyn Bay. He won’t be coming back.
“Over my time in management I’ve had players like Tom Denton, Tom Pratt, Josh Granite and Kyle Harrison who all left to do well at other clubs. So what Lloyd and I do is look for players whose careers might have gone a little bit stale and we give them another chance.”
To provide himself with the best chance of finding some consistency and calm next season, Band has already arranged the club’s summer friendlies. Games against Irlam, Stockport Town, Buxton, Hyde, Stalybridge, Airbus and Oldham Athletic will, he hopes, accustom his players to his style and pattern of play.
He added: “We’ve got to get a good pre-season under our belt. If we do that the squad will hopefully gel before the new campaign starts and we can make some progress in the FA Cup and pick up some prize money.
“But it’s early days and you can’t actually put anyone on a form yet. I’ve spoken to about 20 or 30 players and they say all sorts of things, but you know that if somebody else comes in and offers them silly money you’ll get to the point where they don’t answer your phone calls.
“Money always talks — look at Salford and Fylde in the National League play-off final, 90 minutes from the Football League. Seven years ago, when I was Steve Halford’s assistant at Mossley, we were playing both of them in the NPL first division north.”