Sittingbourne boss Ryan Maxwell celebrated his first anniversary as being boss at Woodstock last weekend, and he has been reflecting on a busy twelve months for the Brickies.

“We had a job to do when we first came into the Club and that was to consolidate and keep the team in the Division – we did that and kicked on, which I think was important that we did continue that momentum into this season.

“We are in the Play Off places currently as we start 2024 and that has openly been the goal between management, players, Chairman etc. at the Club. We are where we need to be, albeit a little bit short of where we could be, or where we deserve to be honest. We have a clear goal at Sittingbourne to achieve and we are currently on target!” 

“When we came in, we were third from bottom and today we’re third from top, we have had a great run and we have been backed by some great people.

“We were delighted to take the good form that we ended last season with into this one and I know where we wanted to be, and we are not that far off. We have dropped points and possibly should have more but there are a lot of big clubs in the League this season with much bigger budgets than ours, so we now push on for the second half of this season and hope we get the same return as we had post-Christmas in 2023.” 

“Our fixtures to end the old year were very tough. We were away to Sheppey and Cray Valley before hosting the League leaders on Monday which was a tough schedule and does not come any harder than that, but it is the way that the fixtures have fallen.

“Personally, that did not bother me in the slightest and it never has – who do we play or when is irrelevant; it is a game of football and there’s three points at stake; we know we have got to play each other twice. We picked up a point from each of the games away from home and could have had more than a point in both but that is the way that the cookie crumbled!” 

Sittingbourne were then beaten by Ramsgate on New Year’s Day. Maxwell said. “Against a very good team I thought our football was excellent – both sides played very well as the pitch became increasingly difficult.

“Let us face it when we were 2-1 down and a man down, you could have feared the worse, and when they went 3-1 up lots of teams would have crumbled but instead, we dug in, and we still had a couple of chances after getting it back to 2-3… but fair play to Ramsgate – they are the best side that we have played, and they will win this League.

“In fairness to them, they were very complimentary after the game and their manager said that a draw would probably been a fair result. We take lots of positives from the game and if we play like that for the rest of the season, they will get no complaints from me or my staff.

“It’s why I was eventually pleased with the win at the weekend. We were disappointing first half but so much better after the break. Delighted for Mitch (May) and his hat trick.” May’s treble made it six in the tall striker’s last four starts for the Brickies after he finally got a run in Maxwell’s side after fully recovering from a badly broken wrist at the start of the season in the FA Cup defeat by Jersey Bulls. A delighted Sittingbourne boss adding, “I have said before that he is the best finisher at the Club.” 

Going into his second year in the Woodstock hot-seat, Maxwell remained focused despite ruling out his sides chances of catching the runaway leaders in the division.

“My comment that Ramsgate will win the League surprised some fans but let us be realistic as I always am,” he said.

“People must remember that we have only been here for twelve months – we were third bottom on day one whilst Ramsgate pushed Chatham all the way last season. This year they have the biggest budget that this League has ever seen!

“No one wants to win this League more than me, I give everything for the cause, but we must be realistic, and I am not going to lie about it and say that we are still in the hunt. Ramsgate have to really slip up various times and we cannot once in our last twenty games!” 

“Of course, we are going to keep trying to catch them as we showed on Saturday when we beat Beckenham – I will never take a backward step, at the end of the day, if we can get into the Play Offs and get promoted that way, do any of you really care?” 

“Of course, you do not – I understand that we may have become a victim of our own success but let us regroup, get together and push the team in the right direction and cement our place in the Play Offs, we have a very good team, let’s stay very positive and run with it until the very end.” 

Images courtesy of Paul Golding