Folkestone Invicta boss Neil Cugley misses out on Ryan Johnson capture

FOLKESTONE INVICTA manager Neil Cugley has signed midfielder Jack Evans, 25, from their Bostik Premier Division rivals Margate.

 

Cugley told www.folkestoneinvictafc.co.uk: “Yes, Callum (Davies, my captain) says he’s good but then he would do as they’re pretty good mates!

“Seriously, I’m delighted to have signed someone who has played as much as he has as decent levels of non-league football, and his ability to play in a couple of positions should make him an excellent addition to our squad.”

But while Cugley was understandably upbeat about the capture of Evans, he admitted to being “very disappointed” by failing to sign Hythe Town’s supporters’ player of the year last year when defender Ryan Johnson pulled out of a move up to sign for East Grinstead Town after the deal looked cut and dried that he was all set to move along the Kent coast.

“He’s got a lot of the qualities I want in a player and I really believed the deal was done when I saw him in the middle of last week,” revealed Cugley.

“I’d been up and down the motorways getting players to sign and when I got home from talking to him last week, I got a load of texts saying that he was ‘buzzing’ and really looking forward to joining us.

“But he changed his mind almost overnight and has decided to go elsewhere. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement – but I guess that’s one of the so-called joys of being a football manager.

“It’s the way things go at times” mused the Folkestone manager showing great restraint and adopting an admriable philosophical point of view and musing that he could have spent that time so much better.

“I’m still talking to several other players’ so we’ll see if anything comes from that, but we’ve got 90 per cent of the squad I want now in place so I’m not too worried.

“We can probably wait until pre-season starts and see how we do in some of the bigger friendlies we’ve got lined up for the end of next month.”

Meanwhile versatile right-back Jerald Aboagye has still not given Invicta a final decision over whether he will be at the club when the new Bostik League campaign kicks off on Saturday 11 August.

Cugley said:  “We’ve offered him as much as we’re going to, but he was asking a lot more than that.  He’s told me that he’s been offered that somewhere else, so we’ll wait to see what he does.

“I’d like to see him stay, but the ball’s in his court and it’ll be his decision one way or the other.”

Visit Folkestone Invicta’s website: www.folkestoneinvictafc.co.uk