Folkestone Invicta boss Neil Cugley was in a reflective mood when KSN caught up with him this week as he prepared himself for another blank football weekend.

The Invicta boss said, “I’ve walked the dog; mowed the lawn a couple of times, something that I don’t like doing; cleaned the garage out that I don’t like doing; the wife won’t let me do any DIY as I’m not any good at it; so just getting on with things really that I’d normally do in the summer,” Cugley added smiling, “even if I’m not very good at it”.

The longest serving manager in football added: “The only time I can remember anything like it was when I was 18 and we had the three-day week and things like that.”

“Luckily enough it’s something that a lot of people aren’t old enough to remember when we only had the lights on for three days in a week.”

“It’s the only time I can put anything near where we are today, but obviously it’s not as crucial as now as lives are being lost. It was slightly different but the same sort of thing, no games going on and no electric anywhere.”

“We’re in an era when we’ve all been so lucky really as everything’s been quite good really without getting too depressed, we haven’t had the wars and things like that and so everything’s been on the plus making this the first minus we’ve had for many a year which hopefully wont last for too long.”

Speaking on the FA’s decision to end their season Cugley was in reflective mood “watching a lot of the news I did sense that it would happen, but I think that they had no option really as they were led by the scientists who are a lot more intelligent than I am. They know what they’re doing and they must know when or how you can go on.”

With many clubs facing a hole in their finances Cugley added, “people forget that we did a thing just before Christmas a ‘Friends of Folkestone Invicta Football Club’. We sent out the usual things to try and keep the team together and that raised £8,000 and what we’re doing now is even above this.”

“I think this raises another four and I know of other people who are donating or wanting to donate in different ways. They’re talking about that so we’re very lucky that they’ve raised thousands for our club which is credit to our club.”

“They know it’s a well run club and they know that money isn’t going to be wasted and will go to making the club strong and get us through this situation.”

“I hope they’ll all come through it, some clubs are lucky that they’ve got a very rich person in behind them and maybe they’ll keep putting the money in.”

“Obviously for clubs like Folkestone I say we’ll get through it and I think we will, but advertising and other things where people would have put money in won’t be there so it will be hard. However because of our situation where we haven’t got any debt or anything like that we can through it.”

Cugley then paid tribute to those behind the scenes at Cheriton Road who have been keeping the club afloat. 

“We’re very lucky at Folkestone as we’ve got Paul Morgan who’s a good Chairman and Jim Pellett who does the books brilliantly so anything we need to sort out I’m sure that we will.”

“It’s ironic really when you hear of a player doing this or that and then you’re talking about a chairman who is good enough to put money into our club so that when you get any problems you can go to the Council and others knowing that for the last seven or eight years everything is completely straight.”

When asked, however, as to whether he could forsee the FA overturning the expunging of Step three Cugley was clear in his response.

“I can’t see it” he admitted.

“My personal view is there will be no way that they can do it. We’re into April now and contracts will run out in four weeks time and then people will be trying to go on holiday.”

“I can understand the National League trying to keep it going as they’re paid a lot more money and their contracts run longer as well. I can’t see how we can do anything really.”

“I’d rather move on now and if that’s got to be, then that’s got to be. Let’s hopefully focus on starting in July and playing our friendlies getting ready for August. Hopefully that’s realistic as it’s still a few months away, but obviously everything’s got to be OK with it”.