Sittingbourne coach Che Stadhart is preparing to return to one of the Kent clubs he graced as a player this weekend as pre-season continues for the Brickies but at a “home” ground he never graced in home colours.
The former striker called Margate “home” in the early noughties and scored twenty-five goals for the club in a little under seventy starts. But he never played for the Thanet side at Hartsdown Park as the club at that stage were one of the nomads of the county.
“When I played for the Club, we were ground sharing at Dover and then at Ashford if I remember rightly,” he admitted this week, “it will be good to go down there to see what Hartsdown Park looks like.”
Stadhart has returned to Woodstock Park along with Billy McMahon and manager Ryan Maxwell as the trio bid to build on the remarkable post-Christmas recovery that saw Sittingbourne turn from relegation strugglers to the top ten in the Isthmian South East table, helped in small measure by an unbeaten run of twelve games that only ended on the final day of the season with defeat at Lancing.
Pre-season plans are progressing though on Tuesday they lost to neighbours Faversham Town in the Bob Amor Trophy match – a defeat that was a frustrating night for the coach.
“It wasn’t our greatest performance, and they were clearly up for the game. It was good because there was more of an edge to the game rather than a normal pre-season, but that’s what we want as it helps us prepare of the competitive start of the season when we have Jersey in the FA Cup when the season kicks into gear.”
“Tuesday was disappointing as if we’d have done what we wanted to do we’d have won the game, but we weren’t good enough on the night.”
“I think we counted four really good chances that we had on Tuesday and goals do change games! We’re still getting minutes in the boy’s legs as we build up to the Cup tie and still trying to get the fine tuning done.”
“We always want to win every game that we play, but it’s about being ready for August 5th… you could say that we’re in an interesting situation at the moment as everyone is.”
“We’ve deliberately set ourselves a tough pre-season – some teams look at it and look at it to have a couple of “easier” games – that’s not us – we’re happy to take on the challenges!”