Interview with coach Ryan Aldridge after signing a new three-year deal that will keep him at Leeds Knights until the summer of 2027
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00:00 You've got a three year contract extension to stick around at Leeds Nights, you must
00:11 be very pleased with that?
00:12 Yeah, I am of course.
00:13 I've had fun since I've been here, been successful since I've been here, so yeah, happy to stick
00:21 around, I like the group, I like the organisation, so I'm going to build on that.
00:25 When you first came in, what were your sort of expectations?
00:27 Because it wasn't necessarily a long term thing, was it?
00:29 No, the first month Steve asked me if I could come up and do a month to help out, so yeah,
00:36 just seeing that season out I thought that was probably going to be it, because obviously
00:39 he was doing something else at the time, but yeah, he obviously made me a deal to come
00:43 up for two years, things seemed to be working out okay, so we decided to get another deal
00:49 done.
00:50 And even when you were at the start of that initial two year deal, you probably didn't
00:54 expect to be perhaps as successful as quickly as you were, is that fair to say?
00:58 Yeah, I don't think so, I think you can never say how successful you're going to be, especially
01:03 in a new organisation and how young the organisation is, but we had a solid team last year and
01:10 it went successful.
01:11 It's a big commitment, obviously three years, particularly in English hockey, British hockey
01:16 sometimes, what is it about the team, what is it about the place, what is it about here
01:20 that makes you want to sort of put down roots here effectively?
01:24 As you know my family and I moved up the first year, just through school and houses and stuff
01:30 like that, last year we ended up, the family stayed at home, so I think we obviously want
01:35 to be together for one thing, and the travel's tough, but it's also tough obviously on my
01:40 wife and the children being away.
01:42 So we want to commit to being up here, there's no point in committing to being up here for
01:46 one year, if we're going to sell up and move up here, I think we have to make it a long
01:50 term thing, Steve wanted to make it longer than I probably wanted to, but not that I
01:56 wanted to, that's probably how I was expecting, but we're happy with it.
02:01 What's the aim, I mean obviously you've been successful so far, possibly another league
02:04 title, possibly another playoff title coming later on this season, what's the sort of aim
02:09 or what's the sort of plan, without giving too much away obviously, but what's the sort
02:12 of plan for those three years?
02:13 I think Steve always talks about sustainability of the business, of the league and everything,
02:20 I think that's the same with us, I think we've got to build up our youth, when I say homegrown
02:26 I mean from the local area, and make it more sustainable I guess through young players,
02:33 we want our youth playing, and I think it's probably just that, just building a team of,
02:38 we want to be a winning team, a team that's up there pushing for titles every year, you
02:42 know Pindar's not going to win it all the time, but I think we just want to build a
02:47 well established organisation that can compete every year.
02:50 you.
02:50 .
02:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]