Neil Cugley, the Folkestone Invicta boss, has shocked the Kent football scene this week by announcing he is stepping down from the Cheriton Road hotseat with immediate effect after a staggering 25 years in the job!

Cugley, who has managed Invicta almost thirteen hundred times, has decided to step aside, and told KSN his reasons in an exclusive chat which really does mark the end of an era not just for Folkestone but for Kent football in general,

“I’m sixty-six next month and I’m pleased with what I’ve achieved,” Cugley told us.

“I’ve met some great people but feel it’s the right time to step aside, I’m not going completely from the club as I’m going to carry on with things off the pitch, but my time in the dugouts is over!”

“It’s been great, and I’ve made so many friends and it’s like the top managers say, if you’re winning it’s fun, but if you lose it’s not so much and not fair on your families sometimes!”

“But it’s been great and privilege really as I was born in Folkestone and to manage the club for so long through the ups and downs has been a privilege really.”

He reflected on his playing days saying, “I had a great career and a lot of that was at Folkestone as well. I started as a centre half and played in the youth team until they sold me for a “few bob” – came back a few years later and was lucky enough to score forty-six goals in one season which will always bring back very fond memories.”

Following Arsene Wenger’s retirement from Arsenal, Cugley became the longest serving manager in the top seven steps of English football and at last count has managed all but one thousand three hundred matches – not that the man himself has time for figures.

“I’m not a stats man at all!” he laughed, “Our secretary Richard Murrill will tell me some, but honestly I have never really looked back as I always look forward anyway as I’ve always had the attitude of what’s gone, let’s move on!”

“I was a player manager at Hythe first of all when a chap called Tony Walton took over the club and asked me to do that. Then I went to Ashford for seven years which was a tremendous time as well and then Folkestone asked me to come here and that’s what I’ve done since.”

“It’s been quite a long walk and some people forget the Ashford time which slips under the radar, but they really were seven great years there too – I’ve been very, very lucky!”

“I will still be involved in the club – just no longer the stress and strains of running the team! I’m one hundred percent behind Folkestone and am trying to get a consortium together to run the club and move it on. It’s got to move on, it’s got to move on!”

“The wife’s delighted I think,” Cugley confessed, “but she’s still running one of the bars at the ground until the end of the season – she’ll have done ten years herself, bless her by then, and they make the club a lot of money to be fair… but your time runs out sometimes and we both feel the same – we love the football club, we’ll still go; I’ll still be involved in it, but without the stress, the strains and the sleepless nights!”

Our chief football writer Mike Green has been interviewing Cugley for over twenty-five years and paid him this tribute; “I’ve known and been talking to Neil Cugley for longer than both of us really care to remember,” Greenie said.

“I first met Neil when he was manager at Ashford Town as it was back then and from that day to this, every request for an interview has always been met with the same warmth, win, lose or draw, and the very fact that Cugs has managed 1,300 games speaks testament to the man himself.”

“You know I’m told he wasn’t a bad player either and if you think of all the games, he actually played along with that amazing number in very few dugouts, Neil Cugley clearly is a one of a kind, and a true Kentish legend of which all of us Men of Kent and Kentish Men should be rightly proud.”

“When I was preparing to talk to Neil for these words, I was reminded that the last time he left a club, I broke the news on Radio Kent on an afternoon in 1997, or in other words, the year that saw the first Harry Potter book published, the movie Titanic has Kate and Leo on our big screens – and no despite some thoughts Cugs wasn’t on the ship when it actually sank… he’s not that old!!!”

“And sadly 1997 always saw the death of Princess Diana! So, I guess just weeks after we all bade goodbye to “everyone’s grandmother” when the Queen passed away, I guess that today we say goodbye to a man who I have never heard a bad word said about in more than a quarter of a century!”

“From the bottom of my heart, thanks for everything Cugs and have a long and happy retirement which knowing you will probably last a couple of days before your next project begins.”

Gillingham boss Neil Harris was asked about Cugley at this week’s Priestfield press briefing. “We met when we went down for a pre-season game and thoroughly enjoyed his company,” he said.

“We had a cup of tea beforehand and a bottle of beer afterwards, so I spent a good hour or so with him – it was a great insight for me as a young manager compared to Cugs 27,000 or however many games he’s had!”

“I actually asked him how he’s done it and he said it was “just” the buzz of being on the side-lines on a Saturday afternoon!”

“But seriously what a great servant to football and what a great servant to Kent football, and he should be – and I’m sure he is – really, really proud of his amazing achievements!”