Local rivalries don’t come much bigger across Kent than in Swale and this weekend see’s Faversham’s rookie management team of Danny Chapman and Phil Miles take charge of their first with both clubs looking to start a run to take them up the BOSTIK South East table.
Speaking to KSN this week, Miles said, “Faversham against Sittingbourne has been a massive derby for years – I’ve played in a few myself and obviously it’s a big game for both sides given our respective League positions and it’s important that we’re right for Saturday.”
“This is only our fourth game and Danny and I are still hoping that we can take Faversham up the League to where they belong to be – both teams have good supports and neither of us want to be in the bottom half of the table and so it will be a good opportunity for both of us to get one over on the other and earn the bragging rights as well as the points – it’s a massive game as two or three wins on the spin could send you up ten places or so in the table.”
“We’ve got a tough month beyond Saturday with Phoenix the following week; Ashford on Boxing Day and then Ramsgate on the 29th. Always busy over Christmas – though not as busy as it used to be, but we want to start picking up the points as soon as possible to get us away from the bottom of the table as soon as possible.”
The pair have been in charge now for a month, and Miles was then asked about the progress – he said, “the coaching sessions are full of intensity and we’re getting some good feedback from the players, but the main thing are the results on a Saturday – and last weekend’s was incredibly disappointing and we’ve got to move on; the squad’s changing a little bit as we get the right sort of players in for the club.”
“It’s a massive learning curve for the pair of us, but we only had eleven first team players to select with three injured and three more suspended which meant we have three under 18s on the bench – it was my son James’ first ever game at that level – against a very good, well organised Whyteleafe side who hit us for six on the day.”
“It could have been different with some of the moments in the game as we went in 0-2 down, but hit the bar twice. Second half they scored first before we had Will (keeper Godmon) sent off leaving us little chance – you’re not going to come back from that. But we have to move on – we’re still assessing the squad and there will be changes in the next two to three weeks.”
“We’re getting a keeper in to cover Will on Saturday with some others looking to come and go – we’ve lost Dave Cook for four to six weeks through an achilles and sadly both Dean Grant and Jack Harris have both left the club as they can’t commit to us training twice a week.”
“Sadly they haven’t been able to, so we wish them well for the future, but we are looking obviously now to bring in two as soon as we can, but we probably won’t know a lot more until after the weekend.”