I've told the chairman that we're not ready to get promoted, says Sittingbourne boss Danny Ward

SITTINGBOURNE joint-manager Danny Ward says his side are not ready to clinch promotion at the end of this season.




The Brickies were forced into making seven changes for last night’s home game against bottom-of-the-table Walton Casuals.

Defender Nick Davis gave Sittingbourne the lead upon his return from San Francisco following work commitments, but the Surrey side grabbed a point when Sam Robinson converted a penalty six minutes before half-time.

Sittingbourne travel to Eastbourne Town on Saturday sitting in seventh-place in the Ryman League Division One South table, with eighteen points from 12 games.

The Brickies are four points adrift of former tenants Maidstone United, who have a couple of games in hand.

Reflecting on last night’s game against Walton Casuals, Danny Ward explained:
“We had seven changes again last night.  “We’re not good enough or big enough to run with seven changes.

“Three of our best players this season were suspended (Jason Dolby, Ashley Ulph and Luke Girt), two more, Arron Gough and Adam Fletcher couldn’t make it because of work and we’ve had a couple of injuries.

“Seven changes from Saturday’s draw with Chipstead and we still should have won the game.”

The Ward brothers have improved matters on the pitch since their arrival to Bourne Park in the summer, but Danny insists he is ruling out promotion this season.

“I keep on telling people that it’s a two-year plan. It’s all about getting the right team. If we can get our best team on the pitch every week then we’ll see,” he said.

Speaking about team personnel, Ward said: “Curtis Winnet’s came back last night after five weeks out; Connor Coyne and Hicham (Akhazzan) haven’t been getting in the side in recent weeks as others have been playing so well and it showed as they ran out of steam after 60 minutes which was no surprise.

“Nick Davis is just back from San Francisco on business and we’ve had another different centre half partnership with Nick and Hoggy (Jonathan Hogg).  They haven’t played together for three or four weeks.”

Ward felt his side had created enough first half chances to win the game comfortably last night.

He said: “It’s a learning process, but bottom line is that you’ve got to score when you’re on top in this division.

“I don’t think that there’s a bad team in this league. We played Horsham when they were bottom and they were 4-0 up after half an hour. 

“Walton Casuals were bottom but they had some good quality players.  But I don’t care about the opposition.

“Last night was another game that we haven’t lost and we’re coming off the pitch disappointed.

There are only eleven points separating leaders Maidstone United and basement side Walton Casuals.

Ward said: “We’ve got 18 points now.  I honestly thought at the start that we wouldn’t have 10 points this side of Christmas.  We’re getting there.  Everyone can see the team spirit in the club which is good and we’ll have them all in for training on Thursday night as we’ve got so many new players that they don’ know any of the set pieces!

“But it’s all right. If you’d told us where we’d be now at the start of the season, we’d have taken it, but we’ve lost four games by one goal and could easily have had another ten points.

“The one thing that is for definite is that we’re not ready to get promoted and I’ve told the chairman that – maybe next year when we really will aim to push on to get into the play-offs but if we did that now we wouldn’t be ready.”

Eastbourne Town are in ninth-place in the table, with 17 points from 12 games and have scored 24 goals and conceded 24.

Visit Sittingbourne’s website: www.sittingbournefc.co.uk  

Eastbourne Town  v  Sittingbourne
Ryman League Division One South
Saturday 3^rd November 2012
Kick Off 3:00pm
at The Saffrons, Compton Place Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN21 1EA