We’ll go all the way if we can because we have to do play-offs and everyone here from management and players all know we underachieved last season, says Hythe Town coach Herbie Tyler

HYTHE TOWN coach Herbie Tyler admits the club underachieved last season.

The Cannons misfired in the Isthmian League South East Division promotion race last season, having to settle for a seventh-place finish, 11 points adrift of the final play-off berth.

Sam Denly’s side kick-off their new campaign with a trip to relegated Burgess Hill Town on Saturday 17 August (15:00), before hosting Lloyd Blackman’s Whitstable Town at Reachfields Stadium three days later.

“There’s some tough games in there but I think there’s a few that I’ll be quite glad to get done with early,” said Tyler.

“If we have a good strong pre-season and go in organised at the start of the season, some teams haven’t found their feet by that point it could be a good time to play against good teams, so we’ll see how that goes.

“It’s a tough start but we’re up for the challenge!”

When asked about the clubs aspirations this season, Tyler made it perfectly clear.

“We want play-off’s at least.  We’ll go as high as we can. We’ll go all the way if we can because we have to do play-offs and everyone here from management and players all know we underachieved last season, so that’s our ambition.

“There’s been some good signings, there’s a lot of very good teams that have been making some very good signings so I think the derby games will be good.

“We do get a lot of that in this league so you do get a lot of local teams playing against each other and it will definitely be entertaining.

“It will be challenging, it will be stronger and more competitive than last season.  You won’t see much of a gap between the front runners  and some of the midtable sides.”

Hythe Town began their pre-season campaign with a 3-2 win over Folkestone Invicta at the weekend and travel to Hollands & Blair on Tuesday night for their second warm-up outing.

Visit Hythe Town’s website: www.hythetownfc.co.uk