Our aim is to get promoted, says Phoenix Sports joint-manager Steve O'Boyle

PHOENIX SPORTS joint-manager Steve O’Boyle says he wants his side to go one better and win the Kent Invicta League this season.



The Barnehurst based outfit missed out on the inaugural title by only two points to Bly Spartans, who open their first ever Kent League campaign with a visit from last season’s runners-up Erith & Belvedere on Saturday.

Phoenix Sports were managed by Scott Saunders last term, who also lost to Bly Spartans in the first ever Kent Invicta League Challenge Trophy last season.

O’Boyle’s new-look side suffered a 3-1 defeat to the same side in the inaugural Kent Invicta League Challenge Shield last weekend.

They took an early lead through Ben Yiadom’s sixth-minute penalty and went on to miss a whole host of first half chances, but Rochester United levelled through Ashley Cooper’s 49^th minute header from a corner.

The game went into extra-time, much to the annoyance of the Phoenix management team and Rochester punished Phoenix’s lack of fitness by adding two further goals from Michael Brown and Anthony Uden.

With O’Boyle currently away in Devon on a family holiday, joint-manager Tony Beckingham – who was asked to leave the dug-out following a dug-out bust up last weekend – took charge of last night’s 1-1 draw at Erith Town and their home game against Thamesmead Town on Thursday evening (6:30pm).

Phoenix face Kent County League side Metrogas in their last pre-season friendly on Saturday, before the real stuff begins.

Phoenix Sports travel to Rusthall on the opening day of the season on Saturday 11 August, before playing Crockenhill at home on 14 August.

Looking ahead of facing Paul McDonagh’s Rusthall, O’Boyle, 35, said: “They’ve got a new manager, a big pitch, we’re not really sure about the playing surface, but it’s going to be tough.

“We played them (when we were managing Erith & Dartford Town) last year and I thought they were one of the better sides.

“I think we’ve got a tough job there. If we can come away with a win it would be a good three points.  We’ve got to go there and conduct ourselves right and hopefully do a professional job.”

Looking even further ahead against Crockenhil, who finished third-from-bottom last term, O’Boyle said: “I’ve been told they might be dark horses this year. Apparently they’ve got some good players down there so I don’t think they’re going to be like last season when they were down the bottom.

“I think they’ll be looking at the top six and onwards so it’s a difficult start for me.”

When asked what the club’s aspirations are for the season ahead, O’Boyle said: “Listen, I’ll be totally honest with you. When you have to build a whole new side, we’ve brought in some good players, some better players who have played at a higher level, but we’ve got to make sure that we gel and it’s been hard trying to get players in.

“We’re happy with the players we’ve got now. It’s all about getting them fit and gelling but we’ve got to be looking at challenging Ashford and teams like that.  Obviously Ashford are the team to beat.

“What did we do last year? Runners-up!  Didn’t get promoted did we?  Our aim is to get promoted.  I don’t know the situation with how many people are going up this year or nothing like that, but our aim is to get promoted.

“I’ll be totally honest with you. The club is a big club. There’s 36 youth teams and vets’ teams playing at the club.  It’s quite well supported.  You’ve got a committee there which are young and want to do things. It’s a big club, a good club and I would say long term they would be a good Kent League side so we obviously have got to try and make that happen.”

O’Boyle added: “There is no budget, no budget whatsoever.”

Visit Phoenix Sport’s website: www.phoenixsportsclub.org