Kentish Football 
Greenwich Borough battle against all the odds to top Kent League table with just £35 in the bank
Thursday 16th September 2010
GREENWICH BOROUGH manager/secretary Steve Firkins has revealed his side are sitting proudly at the top of the Safety Net Associates Kent League table - with only £35 sitting in their bank account, writes Stephen McCartney.
Two goals from Peter Afolayan sealed a 2-0 win at Tunbridge Wells in midweek, a result that sends the poorest supported Kent League club to the top of the table after five games.
“We’re top of the league with 35 quid in the bank,” Firkins told www.kentishfootball.co.uk.
“It’s a massive struggle, people don’t realise. I’ve read on a couple of forums before now, mainly last year that someone said we must be paying Danny Hunt (who signed for Ryman League Division One South side Faversham Town in pre-season) some money.
“To be honest we did have somebody come forward with a little bit of money last year but it ran out after two months.
“It was an uphill struggle and there’s no other word for it. We told all the players at the start of the season there’s no money available and hopefully we will push on like we have done and get on with it.
“The majority of the players have stayed loyal and I can’t fault that. A lot of them are pals and have grown up together over the years in the various youth and reserve sides I’ve had.
“They just want to play and play a decent level of football and that’s what keeping us going really.”
The club have struggled financially since being kicked out of their modest Harrow Meadow ground when the lease ran out to enable Greenwich council to build a housing estate on the site.
They secured a three-year groundsharing deal with Bromley based side Holmesdale, paying rent of around £5,000, and gates have plummeted as a result, with average gates of just 28 - which doesn’t even cover the match officials’ fees, let alone anything else.
Firkins, who says he has to dip into his pockets “every five minutes”, added: “It’s only for the love of the game. It’s not just me, it’s my assistant Billy Walton, my coach Gerry Cox, vice-chairman Kevin Marley and chairman Devon Hanson and old John who works on the gate. We’re all having to dip into the pockets just to keep us afloat.
“The players are a big bonus. We’ve all chipped in to have a coach down to Alton and hopefully we’ll have a couple of quid over and have a couple of beers on the way home.
“We’re a club, we are a good group together but as finances go, we’re just not there. We’re really struggling.”
Greenwich Borough travel to FA Cup giant-killers Alton Town in the Second Qualifying Round of the FA Vase on Saturday.
Alton grabbed all the headlines for their amazing 2-1 win away to Ryman Premier League leaders Sutton United last weekend, a result that left Sutton manager Paul Doswell to admit, “it’s probably the worst result that I’ve had in my managerial career.”
Firkins said: “We’ve got to be very watchful off them, obviously we know nothing about them do we. I’ve come to the conclusion of these teams, you can go and look at these teams but it’s what happens on the day really.”
But Firkins takes his side to Hampshire full of confidence, despite their financial worries.
He added: “I think we’ve sort of turned the corner after the South Park (FA Cup) and Deal Town (League) games. We knuckled down a little bit and changed a few things and Tuesday night I thought we played really well. We deserved our three points and we kept the ball well and played our football. We’re all pleased where we are at the moment and we just have to try to maintain it.
“There’s a lot of good teams that are just behind us. You look at some of these results recently, Norton Sports had a good result last night against Herne Bay, who are obviously one of the favourites. There’s teams taking points of each other at the moment.
“Hopefully we can just keep plugging away. I know it’s an old cliché, but we’ll take one game at a time and see how we do.
“I’ve still got the nucleolus of the side I had last year, but we’ve added a couple of new faces mainly because we had to because we lost certain players.
“Most teams take a little while to gel and the first few games showed that. But at Tunbridge Wells on Tuesday night it was really hard to single any one player out in our side for any credit because they all deserved it.
“I was really, really pleased. It just looked like we clicked so we just have to carry it on.”
“Can we win the League? Ask me that in April!”
Victory at Alton on Saturday would certainly boost the club’s coffers.
“Of course it would,” admitted Firkins. “I don’t want to put any unnecessary pressure on the players but if we win it we win it, if we don’t we just have to plod on and hopefully get through the season and try get some investment.
“I’m trying to gain some investment, I don’t know where. It’s really hard with recessions and government cut backs and things like that. I’m just reading in the paper with these up and coming strikes, with people losing their jobs.
“It’s not making anything any easier trying to get funding in. I’ve tried to sound out some old contacts from a few years back, a couple of companies, but it’s really hard at the moment.
“Thankfully Holmesdale have taken us on board and they allow us to use the canteen where we can generate a little bit of money through the canteen where the girls do a little bit of food for us. It’s an uphill battle, there’s no two ways about it.
“How we keep surviving I really don’t know! A lot of it goes down to the players. I can only praise them as much as possible because they all muck in and chip in and they could all do the easy thing and slide off and nick a pound note elsewhere but their all happy to dig in and help out with the circumstances we’re in.”
Alton Town v Greenwich Borough
FA Carlsberg Vase Second Qualifying Round
Saturday 18th September 2010
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Alton (Bass) Sports Ground, Anstey Road, Alton, Hampshire GU34 2RL
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