I want to be making the final decisions, says Darren Anslow

Anslow and colleague Martin Barnard parted company with the progressive Eltham-based Kent League club last Friday.

“I just want to manage again,” said 42-year-old Anslow, who led Sevenoaks Town to the Kent Senior Trophy Final in his only season at Greatness Park last term.

“Last three or four years’ I’ve been used to making all the decisions and it’s just a difficult one.

“It’s a good club and I think Cray Valley is a fantastic job.  They’re definitely going places and I had no problem with anyone there.  I get on well with everyone but the bottom line is I want to be a manager again.”

Anslow is employed full-time by a school to run the Academy at Cray Wanderers, who have produced the likes of George Porter (Leyton Orient, Burnley), JJ Hooper (Newcastle United) and Ejiro Okisieme (Middlesbrough).

Anslow says he will be fully focused on his day time job, but feels it’s time to manage a non-league club.

“It’s quite easy to separate it,” he explained.  “One’s your day job, I’m in there from eight in the morning to four, but from four o’clock, whatever club I’m at, I’m devoted to them then. I give them my time.

“Not only that I see a lot of the younger players coming through. We’ve had quite a lot of success with George Porter, who’s at Burnley now, JJ who is at Newcastle and another boy at Middlesbrough, so that’s rewarding.

“Also I get to see the younger players coming through and possibly playing senior football in the next few years – it’s pretty easy really.”

When asked what he can offer his new club, former Cray Wanderers reserve team manager Anslow replied, “What can I offer? To be honest I try to do things the right way.  I’ve played as well. A lot of people I played with came to the end of their playing careers and stepped straight into management jobs but I decided to get an education and go and do my badges and do my apprenticeship, by coming up through the reserves at Cray Wanderers.

“But I’m a professional coach.  I’m a full-time professional coach. They’re not getting someone who’s a bricklayer or doing something else during the day. You’re getting someone who’s involved in the game.

“I’m relatively young. In terms of experience, well in two seasons I’ve had three Cup finals and won the League, albeit at reserve level, but that’s a good apprenticeship.

“I know a lot of players in Kent and I try to do things the right way. I’m not sure whether that’s always the best thing, but they’re getting a professional coach and a professional management team. We’re all qualified.  How many managers in the (Kent) League have had three players go to Premiership and Championship clubs in the last two years? I’m probably the only one!”

Anslow insisted life at Sevenoaks Town was hard because he worked without a budget and had to blood his Academy players into the blood and thunder of Kent League football.

The team collected five wins and eight draws from their 30 League games but they did reach the Kent Senior Trophy Final, but lost to Kent Invicta League side Hollands & Blair.

Anslow said: “At Sevenoaks last year we over-achieved. We had no money, had a team of under 21 year olds and still managed to win at Herne Bay, Tunbridge Wells and Deal, which is no easy feat to get into the Final so to get into the final has not been a fluke.

“We just need someone to believe in us and give us a chance really. We’ve done all that with no money.

“A lot of people rate people as top managers and coaches but what they don’t realise is they’re sitting there with a big budget.  Perhaps people need to look and think it’s actually harder at the bottom of the League when you’ve got nothing because you’ve either got to work with kids or find new players, but at top teams when you need a forward you would just go out and my budget would enable me to bring someone else in but you don’t have the beauty of that with the teams without a budget.”

Anslow admitted he was shocked to hear that Ricky Bennett has resigned as VCD Athletic’s manager, despite leading the Crayford-based club to two top-three finishes in two years and Kent League Cup winners last season.

He said: “Any job is interesting and for different reasons.  Ricky done a fantastic job there. I was very surprised when I heard Ricky had gone. I class him as one of my good friends in football and I’m really shocked to be honest because he’s been doing a really good job over the last couple of seasons.

“We all have reasons why we do stuff and Ricky has his reasons why he’s gone.

“In all sense of purposes they’re a Ryman Club. They were thrown out of the Ryman League by default for no fault of their own. You would class that as one of the top jobs.”

But Anslow wants to be the one that makes the decisions.

“To be honest Cray Valley would be ideal for me. It’s a fantastic set-up and they’re definitely going places but at this time of my career I realised over the weeks that I want to be a manager.  I love the coaching side. I coach all day at work and I’ll coach wherever I have to coach because I do that at work.

“I want to be making the final decisions. I want my stamp on whatever I do. It’s very difficult when you’ve been a manager to be a coach.  We all want to be successful but different people have different views on different players and the style of play you want to play.
 
“I feel that I’ve served my apprenticeship in terms of getting my badges and managing at reserve level and managing at Sevenoaks and I say we were successful at those clubs.  People will look at my League form and say no, but look at what the two managers before me had. They had a budget and I had no budget so when I went there I had no players and we still managed to get to a Senior Cup Final.

“Hopefully something will come along. I’m not in a rush. I’ll just wait to see what