Don’t think because we have a little bit more money we will be guaranteed success, says Danny Ward

SITTINGBOURNE chairman Andy Spice has slightly increased the playing budget next season.

The Brickies appointed Jim and Danny Ward as joint-managers last summer and the club exceeded all expectations to finish their first season in charge in ninth-place in the Ryman League Division One South table, with 61 points from 42 games, missing out on grabbing a play-off place by ten points.

The club will be playing their home games at Woodstock next season after deciding to leave Bourne Park owing to the costs involved.

Joint-manager Danny Ward issued a statement on the club’s official website and said an increased playing budget is dependent on the club increasing their commercial activities.

He said: “Jim and I had a meeting with Andy Spice and agreed a wage bill for next season with a small increase on this years’ budget, but it all comes down to the amount of money we can bring in through the Brickies Lottery, gate money and sponsorship money especially.

“So If you know anybody who’s interested in putting any amount of money into the club in any kind of way we have lots of different sponsorship opportunities from an advert in the programme to player sponsor to match sponsor, or maybe even shirt sponsor. Every little bit will help.”

He added: “Don’t think that because we have a little bit more money we will be guaranteed success. 

“We will still have one of the lowest wage bills in the league and half the teams will have twice as much as us.  But what it will give us is more of a chance to strengthen our squad, which is what finally decided that we didn’t finish in the play-offs, because as we proved all season when we had our first choice team on the pitch, we could beat anybody, including Dulwich and Maidstone, who got promoted.

“All the players from last season have signed on again and we are talking to three or four others at the moment to try and strengthen our team.

“What I will tell you is that next season we will be giving everything we have to make it into the play-offs and see where that takes us and with your continued support hopefully we can do it.”

Visit Sittingbourne’s website: www.sittingbournefc.co.uk