Mark Beck on his first league goals
Striker Mark Beck struck twice on Saturday as his first league goals helped United to a 3-1 victory on a wet afternoon in Somerset.
“I don’t think I’ll be forgetting this for a while,” he said. “I’ve had a couple of chances to get my first league goals before, when I’ve come off the bench, and I’m over the moon that this has happened.
“It means a lot to get my first league goals out of the way,” he admitted. “With the first one, it was just a case of gambling. I saw him [Matt Robson] go to hit it so all I was doing was following it in. It beat both defenders and luckily I was at the back post to stick it in.”
“I think it was important for us to get ahead in this one,” he told us. “We haven’t done that enough recently and it gave everyone a huge lift. I think you could see that it gave us the momentum in the game and we pushed on from there.”
His second goal of the day came moments after the second half restart and is already on the list of ‘goals to be included in the Goal-of-the-Season shake up.’
“I saw that it was going towards Joe [Garner] and I called for it,” he explained. “It dropped nicely and I decided quite early that I was going to hit it. I couldn’t have caught it any cleaner to be honest.
“It was an incredible feeling when I saw it hit the back of the net. I ran away in shock more than anything else and that’s why the celebration wasn’t up to much. It comes down to the fact that scoring for the first team means a lot. It’s important to everyone that we win games so getting goals to help with that is amazing.”
As for the importance of the win, he said: “It’s been coming for a long time. Results have gone against us but the confidence hasn’t been affected too much. We know the ability we have in the squad and all we have to do is keep playing our football and we know we’ll be right back up there.”
It has, of course, been a rollercoaster ride of a season for the first-year professionals in the group as they have found themselves heavily involved from almost the first whistle back in August.
“I don’t think any of us imagined it would be anything like this,” he said. “It’s been amazing and we’ve been on a huge learning curve. I just want more of it and hopefully, if the gaffer picks me, I’ll keep getting him some goals.”
And on the finger injury which ruled him out for a couple of games, he added: “I’ve got it all strapped up at the moment, but it’s fine. This is more of a precaution to protect it and it certainly won’t stop me from playing.”