Hare asks for fans' patience during early warm-up games

DARREN HARE is looking forward to Dover Athletic’s home pre-season warm-up game against neighbouring Folkestone Invicta on Tuesday night, writes Stephen McCartney.

Dover Athletic opened their pre-season campaign with a comfortable 1-0 win at Kent League side Faversham Town yesterday.

But the Crabble clash will be Folkestone Invicta’s first match since their relegation from the Ryman Premier League on the last day of last season.

“It’s always nice to have a bit of rivalry,” Hare told www.kentishfootball.co.uk, following yesterday’s Salters Lane victory.

“It certainly won’t be the same sort of game on Tuesday night if we were in the same division, we’re going to treat it similarly to today.”

Dover Athletic swapped all ten outfield players with a new squad at the break against Faversham Town yesterday and Hare warns the same thing will happen against Neil Cugley’s side.

“You can’t go throwing players into 90 minutes when they’ve only been training for two weeks so there’s a lot of changes again,” said the assistant manager, who also revealed the team trained before playing the Kent League side.

“Fans will have to understand that and as we get closer to the start of the season then we’ll be giving players longer on the pitch because it’s a question of building up their fitness.”

But Hare and manager Andy Hessenthaler are currently looking at players in pre-season friendlies, ahead of the club's Ryman Premier League return.

“I think we’ll have more of a repetitive squad together sort of after Tuesday’s game really,” revealed Hare.

“We’ll be picking 16,17,18 man squads rather than taking 22 or 23 players and rotating it round as to who plays for whatever time.

“Fitness will obviously be an issue for us, that’s why we’ve been working hard. We also feel it’s been an issue this year, going up a level. We know we’ve got to be stronger and fitter so it’s going to be hard for us.”

Dover Athletic created fifteen goalscoring chances during the first half against Faversham Town yesterday but had to wait until the 77^th minute to seal the win.

They dealt with Aaron O’Leary’s throw into their penalty area before breaking straight down the middle of the pitch and Lee Browning set up Frannie Collin, who shot across Kevin Readings, who had made a string of saves throughout the one-sided game, and into the far corner.

And Hare said: “We’ve got quality there within the squad and you saw today some of our play was excellent, we just lacked that little bit of final cutting edge in front of goal but for a first game there were a lot more positives than negatives really.”

Hare believes there will be plenty of sides gunning for the Ryman Premier League title this season.

He said: “I think we were bold last year and came out and said we thought we could win the League (Ryman One South) and we ended up doing it.

“This year I think it’s going to be harder for us. I’d be really disappointed if we’re not up there in the chasing pack.

“We’ll set ourselves targets of play-off’s as a maximum minimum, but who knows?

“A lot of things can happen, especially in that division and we’re trying to strengthen the squad in terms of depth but if we can stay free from injuries and suspensions, then I think we’ve got every chance, along with a number of other teams in that League.”

Visit Dover Athletic’s website:  www.doverathletic.com

Visit Folkestone Invicta's website: www.folkestoneinvicta.co.uk

Dover Athletic v Folkestone Invicta
Pre-Season Friendly
Tuesday 15^th July 2008
Kick Off 7:45pm
At Crabble, Lewisham Road, River, Dover, Kent CT17 0JB