After missing out on promotion in the Play Off Final, Hythe Town will be looking to go one better this season although the Reachfields club is hardly being mentioned in any speculation about promotion candidates. 

But as boss Steve Watt has explained, that’s fine with the Cannons players and fans as it seems to be a repeat of what happened twelve months ago. 

“We’ve got the same expectations levels as last year,” Watt told KSN this week.

“With the budget we work with, survival has to be the first target and anything above that is a bonus. Obviously, myself, staff and the players want to get promoted, I’ve never shied away from that fact, but we have to be realistic!”

“I’m certainly not “just” looking for survival, I want to go one step further than we did. However, I think it’s going to be a much tougher League this year, there’s a lot more money been spent on it; there’s a lot more teams who have built some fantastic squads with resources that they have and whilst I thought last year was the most competitive it’s ever been, I think this year will be, if not more competitive than it was last year.”  

“I’ve never been the biggest fan of pre-season” Watt confessed. “I know it serves a purpose, but I think that you can look too much into pre-season good and bad.”

“My main goal every year is to get through it, getting the players good minutes, work on things you want to work on in terms of new players getting integrated into the shape and how you want them to play as well as looking at different combinations.”

“But most importantly is to get through it with no injuries which we seem to have done.”

“So, I guess I’ll have to say really pleased that pre-season is done and we’re through it unscathed and we can’t wait to get started.” 

East Grinstead Town are the visitors to Reachfields on Saturday looking for an improved campaign after struggling for most of last season, not that that will mean a thing come 3pm on Saturday afternoon.

“Doesn’t mean a thing!” Watt said, “It doesn’t matter. I’ve said the same to our boys, we’ve made little change to last season and kept the majority of the squad, but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to have the same season as last year.”

“Just look what happened to Haywards Heath?” warned the Hythe boss.

“Play offs two years ago, relegated last year, that’s a reminder to anyone!”

“That said, you could flip for Hythe as two seasons ago we struggled and made the Play Off Final last time, so you really can’t take anything for granted in this League and we won’t be!” 

“We know that Saturday will be a tough game as it’s the first game of the season, a lot of teams will look a lot different from the first game to the last, but we’re at home first which is what I wanted, and we will look to maintain that good home record we had at the end of last season.” 

“We’ve just to concentrate on ourselves and one thing we do know this year is that a lot of people took us very lightly last year, maybe not as seriously as they should have done, but that certainly won’t happen this year because of what we achieved last year.”

“So, it’s going to be a tougher season for us; we know that, but are really looking forward to it. We’ve got to prove everyone wrong again who thought last year was just a one off, for myself and the players, our job and goal is to prove it wasn’t (a one off).”

“These players and this Club belong in the bracket where every other Club seems to being mentioned for Play Offs you don’t find us in it, so we’ve got to prove again that we should be in that bracket starting Saturday at 3pm!”