It's important to keep everyone's feet on the ground, says Bly Spartans' boss Matt Hume

BLY SPARTANS' manager Matt Hume says he is pleased to be sitting at the top of the Kent Invicta League tree at Christmas, writes Stephen McCartney.


The Strood based outfit have won eleven and drawn four of their sixteen league outings and go into the festive period sitting six points clear of Charlton-based side Bridon Ropes.

“Absolutely fantastic!  It’s been more than what I expected at the beginning of the season after last year and really positive going into the New Year,” said Hume.

Hume, 41, has turned around the club’s fortunes after enduring a miserable campaign in the top-flight of the Kent County League last season and explained that continuity has been the key factor this term.

He said: “We knew pretty much what went wrong last year. Coming up to Christmas last year we wasn’t doing too badly at all but the players we actually got in where from a higher level and when they were asked to go and play for Whitstable we lost nearly half our side and it was very hard to rebuild on that.

“This year we’ve concentrated and built a squad of players we knew we’d be able to keep.  The players who we had last year came from a higher level and came down and the players we’ve got now I wouldn’t say they’re not as good as the players we’ve had last year, but just haven’t played at a higher level yet.

“That’s been a major plus and keeping the same side week in week out.  We identified what the problems were.  I think we knew what they were and we’ve just sorted it out.”

Bly’s only loss of the season came against Erith & Dartford Town, a 5-1 home defeat earlier in the month, but Hume knows there’s a long way to go before Bly Spartans are crowned the inaugural Kent Invicta League champions.

Hume said:  “There’s such a long way to go.   One of my most important jobs is trying to calm everyone down.  Everyone at the club’s really positive believing we can go on and win it and I do but you know that so much more can happen yet and so many teams can catch us and overtake us.  It’s really important to keep people’s feet on the ground and focus week-to-week rather than thinking three or four weeks down the line.”

The club installed floodlighting at their Rede Court Road ground last year and Hume revealed the progress being made to ensure promotion into the Kent Hurlimann Football League is secured.

“We’ve got our stand erected and we’re waiting for the roof to go on,” he said.

“The improvements for the Kent League, I believe is, we have to install toilets into some of the changing rooms and hard standing all the way round (the pitch), though we’ve got it halfway round and a fence one end.  We’re really not far away.

“From our point of view the stand and the lights are the most important and the most expensive items and we’ve got them already so I don’t see it being any problem if we can be in a position to go and win the league and go up.”

A proud Hume added:  “I’ve been there five years’ and as a player I was there years’ ago and I’ve seen the progression  of the club over a long period of time.  It can seem like this year it’s happening really quickly.  The lights went up towards the end of last year and the stands gone up but to me it’s been a combination of a lot of work over a long period of time to get us into this position.

“At the moment we’re reaching a point where all the hard work and all the effort from everyone at the club is coming together and it’s just important now we keep that going.

“The priority is can we get into the Kent League and that’s what I’m trying to do and then we’ll think about next year when it comes.”

Hume takes his side to play Woodstock Park on 27 December, before welcoming Ashford United to Rede Court Road on 2 January 2012.

Sittingbourne based outfit Woodstock Park lie in seventh place in the Kent Invicta League table with eight wins and a draw from their sixteen games, whilst Ashford are a disappointing fifth-from-bottom with five wins and two draws from their thirteen outings.

But Hume said: “Every game’s hard.  Having said that we played (second from bottom) Crockenhill and there was in my opinion a difference between the top four or five sides and the bottom four or five sides but it was very hard to beat them and it was only the last twenty minutes when we scored the four goals that we did and up until then they made it frustrating for us and you still have to play well to beat any side.

“I see Woodstock being another tough encounter.  They’ll want to beast us.  It’s at their place and it’s over the Christmas period. It’s important that we take each game serious.

“I know Ashford will be extremely tough and they’ve got a big budget down there.  They’ve signed a few new players and they’ll always be looking to get stronger and improve and I see any team going to a club like Ashford will have a tough game on their hands – like we did before.”

Visit Bly Spartans’ website: www.blyspartansfc.co.uk

Woodstock Park  v  Bly Spartans
Kent Invicta League
Tuesday 27^th December 2011
Kick Off 3:00pm
at Woodstock Park, Broadoak Road, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8HL