Crowborough Athletic boss Sean Muggeridge targets a midtable finish with his young squad

CROWBOROUGH ATHLETIC manager Sean Muggeridge says he will settle for a midtable position in the Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division this season.

The Crows sit in twelfth-place in the table with four wins and four draws from their 15 league games and held promotion-chasing Glebe to a 1-1 draw on Tuesday night, underneath the club’s recently installed LED floodlighting system.

“We’ve got a really young side, we’ve been finding it hard over the last few weeks but we’re starting to turn the corner a little bit now,” said Muggeridge.

“The problem with young players is that they’re really good and energetic and they do make mistakes and we have to persist with them and we’ve taken a few defeats to get to where we are now.

“We did quite well on Tuesday night against Glebe, getting a draw. It was a massive result against a very, very good side.

“We just worked our socks off, with young players you will always get that but they normally do make mistakes but we matched them.  We really didn’t deserve to win it but we certainly didn’t deserve to lose it.

“We limited them to chances, we hit the bar and had a couple cleared off the line, so did they.

“It was quite an even game.  Reflecting, they were more disappointed not getting the three points, than us. It was a bit of a victory for us because we know Glebe will be competing for the title, against some experienced players like Jamie Philpot, who can play at any standard higher.

“It was a very good all-round performance, which we have been doing in the last few weeks.

“We lost to Chatham a couple of Tuesday’s ago and we shouldn’t have lost that. It was exactly the same as the Glebe game but we had more breaks against Glebe than we did against Chatham.”

Crowborough Athletic welcome Hollands & Blair to Alderbrook tomorrow.

The Gillingham-based club will have their chairman Paul Piggott back in the dug-out after parting company with Simon Halsey on Wednesday night.

Hollands & Blair are in the bottom six with 14 points on the board from their opening 15 games, seven points clear of the relegation zone.

“It’s another difficult game, they all are in this league,” added Muggeridge.

“Hollands & Blair have just lost their manager, I quite not understand why because they’ve been doing pretty well and they won 2-0 (against Holmesdale) on Saturday.

“Paul Piggott has taken over and he won the league (below) with them and he’s a very good manager and a good bloke as well.

“I’m not sure that’s going to turn up on Saturday, whether he’s going to bring some new players in or if it’s going to be the same players but all I know they’ll definitely play for him.”

When asked what Crowborough Athletic’s aspirations are in this competitive league, Muggeridge replied: “Well, I don’t want to be defeatist or anything like that but midtable will be brilliant.  If we can get midtable with this young side we can settle and go for it next year really.

“We’ve got some really good youngsters, a lot of them are only 16-17. We’ve only got a couple of old players still playing. Midtable will be brilliant for us. If we can stay up, brilliant. That’s the main thing. I’m not being defeatist, just realistic.

“We haven’t hardly got any money in the budget and competing against the big boys is quite hard but we did well on Tuesday night getting a draw against Glebe.”

Visit Crowborough Athletic’s website:  www.crowboroughathletic.com

Crowborough Athletic  v  Hollands & Blair
Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division
Saturday 6 November 2021
Kick Off 3:00pm
at Crowborough Community Stadium, Fermor Road, Crowborough, East Sussex TN6 3FY