The supporters of Sevenoaks Town received an early Christmas present this week when manager Micky Collins signed a two year contract extension to keep him at Greatness Park.
In an exclusive interview with KSN, Collins has been talking about is new deal, which as he explains needed no consideration whatsoever.
“The Chairman and the board have bigger fish to fry at the moment which is why we’ve done it now,” he said.
“We all want the Club House built – the planning is under way – and it just takes the emphasis off of me and the players for a little while. And that leaves them to continue the fantastic work that they’ve done behind the scenes and that was it really.”
“The duration could have been whatever we want it to be; after all I’ve already done five years here so another two is nothing really, but that’s what we settled on. It beds everything down before Christmas and it gives something back to our supporters too and the rest of the community who have always supported the club and it just gives everyone a lift before the holidays.”
“We’re in a good position in the League, and by getting this sorted now with a little bit of cheer for Christmas, we can focus on doing well in the League.”
“Not many know that I knew Paul (chairman Paul Lansdale) before I took the Erith & Belvedere job nine years ago now. We had made plans at Sevenoaks and looked at certain things before I’d even gone into management – I think I’d only just stopped playing – my young son was at the club and Paul and I had a plan for the club that never came off as I went into Erith.”
“But then, Paul took it and took the youth on and really made a big thing of it and then I told him, if you really want to take the Club on, you need to take the Senior side which he then did! But I was at Erith then for three years achieving things with them. Eventually when he did come calling and I did get under the reigns, I always knew Paul and I would make a great team.”
“And it amazes me how far we’ve come in total because we’ve built a club and that takes some doing. And to be how respected we are now compared to how the Club was previously looked at amazes me – please don’t get me wrong, they’ve been in Senior football a while, but never won anything before we achieved that.”
“These projects just don’t come along – to do it without putting yourself in financial trouble and making it all solid. We’ve sixty-three teams; a power wheelchair team – we cover every single angle of football – forget me! That’s just the pinnacle, it’s one hell of an amazing club and I always knew that we’d get there and always knew that we’d hit the heights.”
“But I didn’t know that we’d get this high this quick. I thought it might have taken another year – another two years to get out of SCEFL – the League we were in – but we managed to achieve that and I do have to admit that I pinch myself sometimes, I really do.”
“We bring the kit home sometimes to wash it as we did at the weekend – and I felt like throwing it in the bin then – but you wash the kit and it’s got a BOSTIK sticker on the side of it and you think “Wow – Sevenoaks Town are in the BOSTIK League!” C’mon lets pinch ourselves and we turn up at training on a £400,000 pitch with 200 kids on it – they’re the bits behind the club – that’s a team effort – it’s not me; it’s not Paul; it’s all of us put together and you know what, if it sets a precedence to other teams and other clubs around that it can be done, then that’s brilliant and that’s what it’s all about!”
We finished by looking ahead to Sevenoaks’ immediate future – Collins said, “Christmas I’ll some up in one word – tough! We’re away for Hastings on Boxing Day and then home to Cray on the 29th – it’s going to be a very tough Festive period, but there will be no pressure on us at all – we’re not looking for League titles and so those teams will have to turn up and try and take the points away from us.”
“Hastings will be great big crowd Boxing Day which my boys will love and it will be fantastic to go down there and then Cray play fantastic football and to have them at home on the 29th will be another great day to see where we are.”
“At the end of the day, we’re sitting in tenth and doing OK – winning some and losing some with no pressure on us and that’s probably the nicest thing this year – it might be different next year, but at the moment we’re just taking one game at a time!”
Picture supplied by Sevenoaks Town