Tonbridge Angels start another Ryman Premier Division season this weekend when they welcome Wingate and Finchley to Longmead.

Manager Steve McKimm was in bullish mood when he spoke to KSN.

Steve told us, “I’ve got players on board who want to buy into what I want to do.  It’ll take a while for some of them to adjust from the clubs that they’ve previously been at.  But it’s shown in pre- season, so hopefully it will kick into gear at the weekend when we play Wingate.”

The Angels reached the Play Offs last season, and McKimm had this message for fans who may think that there will be a repeat come the end of April.

“People will probably be expecting a repeat of last season, but I’m not because I know just how hard this league is going to be,” the Angels boss admitted.

“Hendon were testament to that last season.  They just missed out on winning the League with Maidstone two years ago, got beaten in the Play Off Final that year when they shouldn’t have been.  They then lost a lot of players and were nearly relegated last year.”

“Gary McCann the Hendon boss is a very good manager and he shouldn’t have been in that position but this League is uncanny – you don’t know from one week to the next what you’re going to get from players; from opposition teams that you’re playing against and it such a hard League to get out of.”

“A lot of teams have been in it a very long time.  So I’m not going to tip us as favourites or Play Offs or anything like that.  I’m just hoping that we can do as well, if not that bit better than we did last year, and we’ll class that as success.”

“If people are saying we’ll win the League or get to the Play Off Final – yes that is success because we’ve done better than last year, but there are ten teams in the League that I could reel off now that will be there or thereabouts and if we’re one of them and people put us in that bracket, then all well and good.  If not, we’ll go about our own business quietly and see what comes along.”

“I don’t think we’ll have a problem managing expectation.  I’ve played a lot of Non-League football, I’ve coached a lot of it and now I’m managing it and I can deal with anything that’s thrown at me.”

“As long as the players do as I’ve asked them to do and it doesn’t happen for one reason or another, I’ll take it on the chin and be their barrier for anything that’s thrown at us.  Expectations come in any walk of life and people expect us to do well, then that’s good my players want to do well and if they can, some of them might get moves which is all part and parcel of football and that’s the bit that I’m looking forward to.”

KSN will be at the Angels opener at home to Wingate and Finchley on Saturday.