I'll be trying to make the play-offs and get out of the league, says Angels boss Tommy Warrilow

TONBRIDGE ANGELS boss Tommy Warrilow says he doesn’t want his side to suffer second-season syndrome.



The Angels finished their inaugural Blue Square Bet (Conference) South campaign in a respectable ninth-place in the table and they travel to Maidenhead United on the opening day of the season on Saturday.

Tonbridge travelled to York Road on the opening day of last season and came away with an impressive 4-0 victory.

Warrilow just cannot wait to get going. When asked about pre-season, he replied, “A bit different to be honest.  I’ve not really enjoyed this one as much as the others apart from the last week or so.  We’ve had quite a few new faces, tried a few different things. 

“The performances at the start were a little bit hit and miss. We’ve had a couple of great performances against Dartford and Charlton and we slipped back into a sloppy mood against Folkestone on Saturday, so I’m like all managers now, I just want to get the season started.”

Warrilow would like to replicate his side’s 4-0 win over Maidenhead this time around.

He said: “That would be nice again, wouldn’t it?

“I’m expecting a physical, tough game.  They’ve got fit lads, a lot of pace in their side.  Obviously there’s quite a slant on the pitch so I’m hoping there’s not much of a wind floating about.

“They’ve brought in a couple of experienced lads.  The boy Pratt up front, I really liked when he was at Basingstoke last year and he’s brought in Derek Duncan from Woking, so he’s brought in some experienced lads.

“Johnson Hippolyte’s one of those managers I was looking at. Last year they know how lucky they were to stay in it and there’s going to be no easy games in this league this year.”

Tonbridge Angels are competing against some big-spending clubs this season.

“I generally believe, not because of the second season syndrome, I just think it’s going to be tough this year,” said Warrilow.

“I looked at the teams who finished below us and monitored what they’ve been doing over the summer and the sides that have come into the league.

“I’ve spoken to Tony (Burman, the Dartford manager) about it and he’s under the same conclusion.  Looking what’s happened in the summer there’s been quite a lot of activity in this league compared to others.

“We’ve just got to look after ourselves. It’s football. We’ve gone into Conference South everyone’s saying finish fourth-from-bottom and after our first season now everyone’s looking at the play-offs so it shows we’ve done well. It shows we’re pushing on.

“My job is to make sure we give everything in every game, to make sure we don’t throw this opportunity away, to push on as a club. We’ve done fantastically last year and we have to make sure we do it again this year.”

Warrilow will be working with a small squad this season due to budget restraints and he has some players’ missing for the opening week of the new season.

“I thought we’ve finished strong last year and we’ve addressed a couple of areas,” he said.

“George Purcell has come on board to help Frannie (Collin) with goals.  Tom Davis has come in.

“Unfortunately we’ve got no Sonny Miles or Lee Browning.  Browno has a two-match suspension and Sonny is running now (following his hernia operation) so we’ll see how soon we can get him back on to the pitch.

“Mikel Suarez comes back from holiday on Tuesday.  After the first couple of games everyone should be available. Sonny’s the only one who’s questionable. 

“We’ve lost Jon Heath for the start of the season, which is really disappointing, but he’s getting his knee scanned.

“Perhaps I can bring in a body on board to fill that area until we know the extent of Heathy’s damage.

“I haven’t got a lot of cover at the moment. I‘ve got Danny Walder and Robbie Kember, who are doing fantastic jobs there.

“I’ll be trying to address that this week if we can.

“The key this year is to keep everyone as fit as we can and suspension free.”

When asked what his aspirations are for the season ahead, Warrilow said: “I’m more than happy!  I want to win every game of football. I’m no different to everyone else. I get the hump.   I want everything done right. I’m a nightmare because I want everything done properly, right all the time.

“That’s the standards I’ve set at our place.  The lads’ know how I am.  I’m too cynical on them.

“Sometimes I only have these boys in for an hour or an hour and a half as week because if we’ve got a game on Tuesday we’ve only got a Thursday night to work on stuff.  Those are the levels I’ve set the lads.

“It didn’t surprise me last year, we done every so well.  I knew it would be hard. When I reflect on it, we could have had a few more points. We missed the play-offs by fourteen points and that’s a great achievement.

“Looking at the club the way we do things off the pitch, that’s going in the right way.

“I have to keep reminding people, we’ve been in this league one season and we’ve set out a plan the season before last to try and grow this club in this league and that’s the most important thing.

“If we did make the play-offs and get promotion (into the Blue Square Bet Conference Premier), there’s a lot of clubs a lot bigger than us who say they wouldn’t handle it because of the expenses with travelling etc.

“It’s a very fine line between success or failure.

“We’ll be going out to make that problem for the board. I’ll be trying to make the play-offs and get out of the league.

‘I’ve looked at the sides that went down last year and the sides that stayed up – if you get complacent and a little bit arrogant to the approach of it all you can get sucked into that.”

The Angels’ first league action at Longmead Stadium is against Salisbury City on Tuesday 21 August (7:45pm).

Visit Tonbridge Angels website: www.tonbridgeangelsonline.co.uk

Maidenhead United  v   Tonbridge Angels
Blue Square Bet South
Saturday 18^th August 2012
Kick Off 3:00pm
at York Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 1SF