Following the departure of manager Steve Watt on Monday, the management team of Mike Sandmann and Steve Brown have begun to shape the Margate squad ahead of the 2018/19 season. 

The club have today announced their first new signing of the closed season with Alex Brown joining the club from Dartford. Brown has played regularly at non-league level having played for Maidstone United over 100 times having started his career in the youth ranks at Gillingham.

Speaking about their new signing, joint manager Mike Sandmann, said: “Alex is a fantastic addition to the group, he was a regular for Dartford last year and I look forward to working with him again. Alex will bring goals from midifield as well as his hard-woring attitude. I’m pretty confident he will also become a fans’ favourite here at Margate.”

Liam Friend was the first player to put pen to paper for the coming season shortly before Watt departed. It was quite the coup to keep hold of the experienced centre half as he had offers from teams in higher divisions.

There was further good news for the Gate when midfielder James Rogers signed a new deal to stay with the club. Defender Tom Wynter also committed his future to the team for 2018/19 as well this week.

Matt Bodkin has departed the club following the end of the season leaving his playing and fitness coach role. Also released is goalkeeper Lenny Pidgeley, midfielders Jack Evans and Sam Blackman and striker Jay May.

Chris Sessengon has decided that he needs to focus on getting back to fitness before he signs a deal with a club for the new season, be that Margate or another club.