New Hollands & Blair boss Darren Blackburn is only too aware of the task that he has inherited at Star Meadow. 

Before taking charge of his first SCEFL Premier game in midweek, the Gillingham side were in the Division’s relegation places 

“There will be highs and lows in the coming weeks of course there will be!” Blackburn admitted to KSN this week.  

“Tuesday the players went away disappointed with a 0-0 draw against a team who would have been in a play-off place if they had won – and that is what I want to see, that’s the type of lads that we have in the dressing room now. 

“When I look round it, there are a group of men in there that can go out and compete with some great young talent dotted around it, and that is how these sides should be. We are not a development team no matter what anyone thinks – we have to blank out all the noise, focus on our dressing room and what we are doing and not focus on anyone else or anyone else’s opinion right now!”  

“With anything when you are down in the League where we are, I said to the boys in the dressing room afterwards, we don’t know how important that first point will be next week, next month, we will only find out come the end of the season.  

“To take a team like Erith & Belvedere – who I knew nothing at all about until tonight as I haven’t had a chance to do any research at all since, we took over last week!  

“I have not had chance yet to research the teams, some I will know but that is only by recognising some of the players – but I thought that they were a good side, very lively, as they go through, they are a real threat, we had to scrap for everything on the night.” 

“We know that we are going to have to dig deep and the players do too, but in truth I will never have it any other way from any of my teams. Anyone who knows me as a player knows the type of character I was; if I wasn’t having my best game, you would still get a nine or ten in terms of effort- I can’t fault any of the lad’s effort against Erith. 

“We started with one shape; we tried something that worked on Saturday but it didn’t tonight and that was evident early on! They reacted well to a change of formation – they knew the drill and what Plan B was and then it was a case of doing everything we can with the resources available to us.” 

“Make no mistake this point is something we can build on as we go to Snodland now on Saturday.” 

Blackburn returns to the Club where he played and managed, but it is a completely different Star Meadow that he has come back to. “It certainly has changed a bit since I played here,” Blackburn joked.  

“In line with Soccer Elite and the investment that the Club has had, these facilities are amazing, but sadly as people know, it’s not Blair’s money and as a result there is a limited budget to work with. That said all the lads that I have spoken to and the lads who have come already want be here and want to be here for the fight.” 

“On Saturday, we went out of the Kent Senior Trophy and whilst no one wants to get knocked out of Cups, Erith were the test as it was a League game, to see what back bone they had and see if they melted especially when they were under a little bit of pressure!”