Kentish Football 
Our fixture back-log is ridiculous, bemoans Tunbridge Wells boss Martin Larkin
Wednesday 05th January 2011
TUNBRIDGE WELLS boss Martin Larkin has criticised Kent League officials over the club’s crippling fixture back-log, writes Stephen McCartney.
The Culverden Stadium based club have played only 10 league games so far this season and like rivals Erith & Belvedere they face the prospect of cramming in two-thirds of their league games within the last remaining seventeen weeks of the season.
Three home and two of the Wells’ away games were frozen off during the two recent cold snaps, but clubs have complained about the lack of midweek games this season and Larkin’s amateur side are paying the price.
Bromley based Holmesdale are the only Kent League side that have reached the half-way stage of their 30 game league programme and Larkin is looking for answers.
“It is ridiculous the amount of league games that everyone in the league has played at this point of the season. It‘s an absolute joke!” said Larkin.
“If we win Saturday, we’re in the Kent Senior Trophy on Saturday, if we win that game it’s my understanding we’re in the next round of the Kent Trophy (the following week) so it will be another two weeks without a league game, so we’ll be heading towards the end of January having played ten league games, so it doesn’t make any sense!
“It would be nice for them (the Kent League) to explain it a little bit but I don’t think they will.
“It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever and it’s killed us because we haven’t had that many games postponed but we’ve had matches when we could have played.
“You ask any team in the league, any manager in the league, and all they want to do is play and there’s been so many opportunities to do that and we’ve not had games arranged. It’s very strange!”
Tunbridge Wells welcome Barnehurst based Vandanel Kent County League side Phoenix Sports in the Second Round of the Kent Senior Trophy on Saturday and if successful they will play VCD Athletic, in the next round seven days later.
Larkin added: “We hope to win, we expect to win but that then makes the game against VCD away that means we’ll be in the last weekend of January having played 10 league games. A step five league, I don’t understand it to be honest.”
Phoenix Sports arrive at Culverden sitting in fifth place in the top-flight of the Kent County League, with a record of seven wins and four draws from seventeen games and are eight points behind league leaders Hollands & Blair, although Phoenix have played four more games.
They have some familiar names in their ranks, Mark Greatorex and Chris Whitehouse, Drew Watkins, Dominic Websdale and Sam Prett, who have all played for higher league clubs.
Larkin warned: “They look a decent side on paper. They’ve got a few decent players, Drew Watkins is down there and Sam Prett is playing up front for them so they are one of the better Kent County sides.
“We had some very good Cup games at the start of the season, obviously we did a job on Dulwich Hamlet (in the FA Cup) and we have to make sure we don’t experience what they experienced and we need to bounce back (from the defeat to Erith Town) basically.”
Visit Tunbridge Wells’ website: www.tunbridgewellsfc.co.uk
Tunbridge Wells v Phoenix Sports
Kent Senior Trophy Second Round
Saturday 8th January 2011
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Culverden Stadium, Culverden Down, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN4 9SG
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