People want to come and play for Lordswood now, says Guest

Thursday 08th April 2010

LORDSWOOD assistant manager John Guest says the club is going in the right direction, writes Stephen McCartney.

The Medway club will climb off the foot of the Bulmers Cider Kent League table with a win at Corinthian tonight - just rewards for the efforts that Guest and manager Jason Lillis have put in since their arrival at Martyn Grove.

However, it has been a mixed week for Lordswood as they suffered a 1-0 home defeat to Norton Sports on Easter Monday - following a 6-1 victory at free-falling Erith & Belvedere two days earlier.

“We were fully deserved of the result to be fair and I think we actually could have nicked another one or two,” Guest told www.kentishfootball.co.uk.

“Everything we’re trying to put together there came together on Saturday, but like everything else in football it’s a progression and we just need to keep progressing and be more consistent.”

Giant target-man Richard Dimmock bagged himself four goals and Lordswood are getting a good reputation on the field.

“I think it’s a good structure and good organisation,” explained Guest. “As a side, people want to come and play for us now. The boys that we have there have a complete belief on what we are trying to achieve and the whole club is on the upturn, I think, without a doubt.

“There’s quite a bit of money being spent through the summer on ground improvements. We need a covered area for, I think it’s another 100, for us to go in the FA Cup and other bits and pieces to do with the Vase.

“The club want to have that all in place so if we have a decent run of any description it’s there and available to help out with the finances.

“The dressing rooms are being completely revamped. Although we don’t pay money to players what we’re looking to do is to make it more professional as possible so people want to come and play for the playing sake rather than the money side of life.”

Lordswood average gates of 75 to Martyn Grove and their largest crowd of the season was when 172 watched Herne Bay come away with a 2-0 win on 13th February.

“A lot of clubs now have pulled the plug on the budget this year as I’m aware, but we started off in that situation,” explained Guest.

“It’s not something that the club wants to go down and we’re in total agreement with it, the financial situation that’s going on doesn’t help matters in any of the clubs.

“On the other hand I did read that (club director) Paul Caulfield has mentioned our support has drastically gone up this year where as a number of other clubs have obviously declined with the present climate.”

Looking ahead to tonight’s game bottom-of-the-table clash at Corinthian, Lordswood will be gunning for all three points to continue their resurgence.

And with no relegation from the Kent League, Guest insists there is something to play for.

“It’s our Cup final, this is our Cup final, there’s no question about that,” he said.

“We want three points to get off the bottom, but what we want to do is to make sure we get our structure right for next year, long-term.

“When we kick off in the pre-season, which we have organised a bit of that now, we hit the ground running.

“We’re not looking at massive changes next season. We are going to add quality to the side, if there’s quality that comes in, one or two boys but we’re generally pleased with what we’ve got at the club at the moment.

“If you look at the goals against, they’ve gone down dramatically. The goals for have now gone up as we’ve brought in players for the long-term.

“Richard Dimmock, as an example, he’s come in; Dominic Elmes have come from Whitstable.

“We’ve got players who want to play for us now from sides in higher divisions. They’re jumping on board the fact that what Jason and I say to them makes sense. We’re well organised and I would like to think people want to be a part of that and the word is starting to spread.”

Visit Lordswood’s website: www.lordswoodfc.co.uk

Corinthian v Lordswood

Bulmers Cider Kent League

Thursday 8th April 2010

Kick Off 7:45pm

At Gay Dawn Farm, Valley Road, Longfield DA3 8LY