Sevenoaks Town are top of the Bet Victor South East Division! It’s a statistic that has even surprised boss Micky Collins, but as the Town boss told KSN this week, he’s not taking anything for granted.
That comes ahead of a really tough month for his side face Ashford Town and Haywards Heath Town after a trip to Sussex on Saturday to face a Hastings United side who have conceded just one League goal so far.
“It’s something that I never expected to happen not probably at all this season,” Collins told us.
“It’s a surprise but we have played quite well this season, but we’ll take it for the minute and run with it to see where we finish up.”
“It’s been a good start in the League, and we played well in the Velocity Trophy last week against a good Phoenix side as well. Even the goal that we lost at Cray Valley was an own goal – we’ve started well but we’ve got a really tough month now ahead of us and that will show us genuinely where we are!”
Jokingly we suggested to Collins that with his side having sixteen points already, they were only twenty-four points away from the “magical” forty-point mark.
“That’ll please my Chairman!” was the reply. “Seriously though, we are still a building club with the second phase still to get off the ground with the new club house.”
“Until we get to that point, we’ll do what we can do and see how far we get. It’s been a great start and a bit of a shock – I didn’t expect us to be up there, perhaps in the top ten, but not where we are.”
“Ashford are flying with games in hand. We’ve got a big game on Saturday – they’re unbeaten too and have let in just one goal. We won’t get carried away, we’ll just enjoy the moment and then see where we are!”
Looking ahead to the weekend’s trip to the Sussex coast, Collins conceded.
“They’ve got a fantastic record and I’m really looking forward to it as it will actually tell us where we are – I know we’ve a couple out – it will show us where we are as a squad.”
“Are we genuinely there as contenders or have we just had a great start and when we play the big sides, are we good enough to compete?”
“It’s nice to get that out of the way early as it will give us the opportunity to look and see where we are as a gauge. It should be a good crowd down there and they play some good football – I’m looking forward to it and it should be a really good game. And really interesting!”
“We’ll go there and prepare properly and be organised when we go there. The boys are up for it – they’re playing well so why wouldn’t they be? It’s a tough ask and let’s see where we are on Saturday night and whatever happens we’ll move forward.”
“The League in my view is still taking shape as in this League even sides in the bottom four can rally and get their act together. Hythe for instance have made some signings this week and they could very easily win their next six or seven games to get right back in there and let’s be honest, we could lose our next four or five; it’s that wide open!”
“It’s not like last season where Cray Wanderers were simply head and shoulders above the rest of us and were outstanding and they deserved to win the League – they were fantastic!”
“But I think it will between eight teams this year but a bit tighter, unless Ashford continue to do what they’re doing which is incredible. It’s too early to say yet and I think you’ll probably have to wait a little bit closer to December before it does.”
Collins ended our chat with the team news for the weekend. He said, “Tommy Whitnell’s fractured his arm and will be out for a few weeks and there are a couple of others who will be touch and go and we’ll have assessed them at training. Apart from that we should be OK.”