Kentish Football 
It's been a real struggle to keep hold of my players, says Lewisham Borough boss Darrell Queeley
Thursday 28th July 2011
LEWISHAM BOROUGH boss Darrell Queeley says he has had to fight to keep his best players at the club, writes Stephen McCartney.The south Londoners are based at the Ladywell Arena and are preparing for the inaugural Kent Invicta League campaign which will see them travel to Woodstock Park on 20 August, before welcoming Erith & Dartford Town the following Wednesday.
Lewisham finished in seventh place in the Kent County League top-flight last season and we’re a last-minute entry into the new Step Six league after third placed side Cray Valley (Paper Mills) were controversially promoted into the Kent League along with runners-up Canterbury City.
“Most of the teams we kind of know from last season,” said Queeley, after his side lost 2-1 to Beckenham Town on Tuesday night.
“There’s new teams such as Erith & Dartford Town, Ashford United, Seven Acre & Sidcup have come into it, Meridian, Lydd, so there’s a lot of teams that we don’t really know about.
“I’ll try and sneak a couple of games, if I can, before the start of the season.
“Our expectations are to try to do better than we did last season, finishing seventh (in the Kent County League Premier Division) and maybe push on.
“There’s a lot of good clubs in it, Hollands & Blair, Ashford United is a big club so they’re going to be there abouts, so we’ll try to keep up with those sort of clubs and see where it leads us.”
The new league has brought an air of excitement to club’s at this level of the game and Queeley admitted he is looking forward to facing some new challenges.
He said: “We’re looking forward to it, travelling to some new places, going up to Ashford on a Wednesday evening will be interesting! Yes, it will be fun. I’ve never been to Lydd before, I haven’t played at Seven Acre, so lots of fresh faces, new people to see, new grounds to go to.”
Looking forward to the opening day trip to Woodstock Park, Queeley said, “We’ve got a friendlies coming up and possibly by the Dulwich Hamlet game (on Wednesday 17 August) I want to be going out with my strongest line up.
“I have a rough idea what we’re taking to the Woodstock game. Last season we played Woodstock twice, once was a good win for us, quite comfortable. I have to be honest they beat us quite comfortably, they were one of the strongest teams we played the second time around so we don’t know what sort of Woodstock team there going to get so we’re just going to go out there, hopefully with our best line up and play as well as we can.”
But the former Sevenoaks Town coach admitted he has faced a fight to keep some of his players at the club – but didn’t want to broadcast which of his players are attracting the attention from higher league clubs.
“At the minute the team we ended the season with won our last five games and did really well. It has been a real struggle to try to hold onto those sort of players to be honest,” he said.
“We’ve had a few players with a few offers from Kent League and Ryman League. For me it’s been a struggle to hold onto those boys because we want to start this season the way we ended the last.”
When asked whether it’s easier to attract players now that they play at Step 6, Queeley said: “I’m sure in time with the Invicta we’ll be able to attract more and more players but we didn’t go out searching as such, we tried to keep what we had and then invite some more players around.
“We try to concentrate on improving our players as well as winning games. We try to play the right way and try to improve individuals. If people come in and want to take individuals out that’s a little credit to what we’re doing down here I guess.”
When asked which players have been targeted by higher league clubs, Queeley replied, “I don’t want to because I want to try to keep them. I don’t want to make it a little more public about which players but I won’t do that but we will try to keep hold of the players.”
Lewisham Borough continue their pre-season preparations with a game against Bethnal Green United on Saturday, 2pm, at the Ten Em Bee Sports Development Centre.
Visit Lewisham Borough’s website: www.lewishamboroughfc.com
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