Holmesdale assistant manager Ross Mitchell: The pressure's on Greenwich Borough to win the game

HOLMESDALE assistant manager Ross Mitchell says he’s really pleased that Jordan Green has made it to the Premier League.

The 21-year-old has signed a contract with AFC Bournemouth - and impressed at the Bromley based Southern Counties East Football League club during the early stages of last season.

“Really pleased for Jordan.  I’ve managed to link him up with an agent as well, who’s our chairman’s brother who looks after a couple of professional footballers himself.

“I’ve spoken to him when I heard about the news when he got into Bournemouth and Andy is going to look after him and make sure he’s looked after well.

“When he was here we knew he had raw talent. It was just establishing that. He’s a good lad and he’s a good player so we wish him all the best.

“We’ve not got any players on any contracts but at the end of the day it’s not about us, it’s about going on and doing best for himself. 

“He’s quite late in terms of getting into a pro club at that age but I think he’s got the ability, whether he can actually do it is down to him now.”

Holmesdale were without a game yesterday as they were the nineteenth club but they kick-off their new campaign with a home game against title favourites Greenwich Borough on Wednesday night.

Ian Jenkins’ side got their campaign off to a winning start, 4-1 at Rochester United.

Ricky Gundry gave the home side the lead, but Boro netted four goals during the second half through Michael Power (2), Jake Britnell and Billy Bennett.

Mitchell is relishing the visit from their former tenants.

He joked: “Nice easy one, should be a nice easy one that one!

“No! I mean the pressure’s on them to win the game and we’ve worked on a plan. Whether that plan comes on depends on how the players’ perform on the day but we’ll show them the right amount of respect but we’ll also warn them to fear us in certain areas.

“Greenwich Borough of the days of groundsharing with Holmesdale to the days now of sharing at Dartford are different.  They were always struggling, always trying to rob Peter to pay Paul really and now they’ve got some financial backing and they’ve got a good manager in there who’s got some experienced players so naturally you’d expect them to do well but that’s up to them to show and see what they’ve got to do.”

Holmesdale enter The FA Cup at the first hurdle (Extra Preliminary Round) on Saturday and when Mile Oak to Oakley Road.

The Portslade, Sussex outfit play in the Southern Combination League Division One (top-flight) and like Holmesdale they kick-off their league campaign with a home game against Selsey on Wednesday.

Mitchell, though, is playing down their FA Cup tie, especially with £1,500 up for grabs for the winner.

He said: “I’m not putting much emphasis on that game. Everybody wants to do well in The FA Cup and you could put a lot of pressure on we have to win this game but at the end of the day it’s another game of football!

“Yes, there’s the added extra of it being The FA Cup but it’s just another game of football for us and if the boys play the way we want them to play and they execute things how we want them to execute them, then we should do well.”

Holmesdale finished in fourteenth-place in the table last season and Mitchell is keeping things low key.

“I’m not going to put a number on where we want to finish in the league,” he said.

“People say they want to finish in the top five this year or they want to finish here or there.

“We just want to be as competitive as we can.  We want to do well for the football club but we’ve got a group of boys in there that want to do well for themselves as well and where we finish at the end of the season we’ll only say.

“We’ve set our own mini targets as a management team but we take that sort of quarter to quarter rather than setting an end target towards the end of the season.

“Some clubs will be saying they need to win it. We’d certainly like to do that. Realistically can we? Who knows! You don’t set out to not to win it, put it that way.”

Manager John Wilfort – who has suffered an injury prolonged career and has previously played for the likes of Charlton Athletic, Bromley and Erith & Belvedere - is now preparing for his first full season in charge of the club.

“Wilfs works really hard. For me he’s put everything into it and I think he’ll be great for us,” said Mitchell, who is also the club secretary.

“I enjoy working with him, he’s a good lad and he’ll do well with some of these young kids as well.  He’ll look after them and make sure they’re protected so I’m happy he’s with us rather than against us.”

Visit Holmesdale’s website: www.pitchero.com/clubs/holmesdalefc

Holmesdale  v  Greenwich Borough
Southern Counties East Football League
Wednesday 12^th August 2015
Kick Off 7:45pm
At Oakley Road, Bromley, Kent BR2 8HQ