Arsene Wenger’s departure as manager at Arsenal at the end of this season will leave Folkestone Invica boss Neil Cugley as the longest serving manager in the top six levels of the English football Pyramid.
Frenchman Wenger, 68, has managed the Gunners for a total of 823 games over his 22 years in charge of the famous north London club, at Highbury and now The Emirates during which time he has achieved virtually everything in the game at club level.
He inherited the longest serving tag at the start of last summer when Wealdstone’s equalling long-serving Gordon Bartlett stepped down at the west London club at the end of the 2016/17 season.
His arrival at the Stones in 1995 pre-dated Wenger’s arrival as a virtual unknown at Highbury by some 16 months.
Invicta manager Neil Cugley took over the reins at Cheriton Road in the summer of 1996 and marked 1,000 games in charge a couple of matches before they clinched the Ryman Division One South Championship for the first time with a 6-0 home win against Walton & Hersham on Good Friday, March 25, 2016.
After a successful non-league playing career he had managed first at Hythe Town and then at Ashford Town, but with some noteworthy successes.
Ar the time of Cugley’s 1000 games, a Wealdstone official told us that Gordon Bartlett was on around 1250, but we believe that figure, unlike Neil’s 1,000, included pre-season and friendly games.
Our website statistician Colin Ashman recently confirmed that tomorrow’s vital home game against Dulwich Hamlet will be Neil Cugley’s 800th league fixture alone in charge of the club that he regards as his home town team, having grown up and gone to school in Folkestone at St Eanswythe primary school and the Harvey Grammar – just 50 yards or so from the Cheriton end goal at Invicta’s Fullicks Stadium.