KSN caught up with the Wells boss after match number four of the 15 – a 2-2 home draw with Deal Town.
“It has most definitely sunk in now as we’ve got so much to plan.” Larkin admitted.
“The special final kit has been ordered and is being delivered on Thursday – playing kit and track suits – the lads have got fittings on Saturday for their Cup Final suits and that kind of stuff. We had a meeting at Wembley last Friday and that’s really when it sunk in if I’m honest.”
“All that we’re planning – sending scouts to see Spennymoor; all that type of stuff – it’s exciting, it’s good and you plan around it to try and keep yourself fresh as well, but the minute that the whistle blows I just want to win, win games of football as after all that’s what we’re here for – it’s what we do to be fair; we’ve been doing it since September and I am genuinely frustrated when we don’t!”
Richard Sinden’s 90th minute equaliser against Deal – whose 2000 achievement in winning the Vase the Wells are of course trying to emulate – keeps Larkin’s side incredible unbeaten League run going.
Ten Kent League games without defeat keeps the Wells in 5th place in the table, and Larkin was keen to focus on that after the game.
“That’s the positives that we take out of the game – obviously the late goal from Sind’s kept the run going. Still leaves me frustrated though because we’re better than that on the whole.”
“The fact that we’ve had to play Monday night is no excuse – it’s not at all as we made eight changes from Sevenoaks on Monday. It’s frustrating because other sides above us dropped points tonight. Deal did a good job second half slowing things down – we couldn’t quite follow that.”
Still having to face ten games in 20 days, Larkin did see that there could be advantages of having so many games to play.
“You never know that if things go well and we keep everyone injury free and we continue the momentum onwards, all the games that we’ve got to play could still prove to be a bonus,” he said.
“Obviously we’re going to climb the table as we’ve got games in hand as well of course a big Cup Final at the weekend that we’re all looking forward to playing and are getting excited about.”
“The thing you must remember is that Spennymoor are also in the same boat we are and have a hell of a lot of games to play too.”
“They’re playing Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday for the rest of the season as well as I believe another five or six games that they’ve got to fit in.”
“We know the rules that if you want to go up you need to get all games in by 6th of May which is the Monday after the Final so we have to get the games in.”
“Of course we can still threaten at the top despite what I read in some places… It is the same for both sides, but at least most of our home games have been rearranged for midweek so that we haven’t got too much midweek travelling.”
With the Wembley Final still three and a half weeks away, this coming Sunday sees Wells have the chance to win the Kent Senior Trophy for the first time (after four previous unsuccessful Finals) when they face Lordswood at Longmead in the Final.
Whilst Wells are unbeaten in the Kent League since October, Lordswood did beat them 4-1 in the League Cup in January.
Larkin then knows what to expect from the Medway side, yet was surprised by the size of Lordswood midweek defeat at VCD.
He said: “I genuinely think that Lordswood’s 9-2 thrashing at VCD will have the opposite effect on them that some will think.”
“Whatever the reason that they’ve put a “weakened” side out, will put extra pressure on whatever side starts Sunday as they have been smashed and you could argue that now the side that plays in the Final effectively has to justify their midweek team selection.
The players that have been rested now have to deliver on Sunday as they’ve now effectively wasted a league game and that’s puts a lot of pressure on the changing room.
It’s not something that we’ve done – we’ve had the big Vase games and we didn’t rest people – I’ll tell you now that we won’t be resting the team the week before Wembley.”
He went on, “It does put pressure on them and now I believe that they’ve got to deliver on Sunday which makes them even more of a threat to us than before as I believe it’s the Club’s first Cup Final and it is undoubtedly a big game for them.”
“It’s been well reported that Jason (Lillis, the Lordswood boss) has made it public that he’s leaving and moving on to bigger and better things in the League above.”
“That said we’ll see the game Thursday out of the way (against Canterbury City) to see how we’ll set up, but I hope that given the lads have got their suit fittings Saturday we’ll be in a very good place come Sunday.”
“We’ll concentrate on performing on the day and if we perform on the day we know that we’ll cause them problems.”
“We’re the favourites as we’re the bigger club – without a doubt we are the biggest club in the League and that’s a fact given our fan base – we’ve had two hundred plus on a Champions League night in the rain and the cold.”
“In terms of results this year, we’ve won one, they won one and one’s been drawn – it’s all about who handles the day better.”
“Normal what’s normal? I stayed in a hotel room in Tunbridge Wells after the game on Tuesday to try and cut down on some of the travelling, and my wife’s coming up to see me – it is tough as we know that we’ve got to keep the boys fresh, but my back room team have to keep ourselves fresh and motivated too.”
“Lets face it – we want to win things and that’s why we do it. I’m not involved in first team football not to win. We’ve improved players and sent them to higher clubs – whilst that’s nice, now I want to win things and I want to win the FA Vase and the Kent Senior Trophy and finish as high as possible in the League and to do that we must cope with what’s coming – we’ve been magnificent so far – and the lads are in good spirits and we’ll certainly try and do that.”