I want to build a community for Hextable, Swanley and Wilmington, where people come and support their local club and their local football club is Sutton Athletic, says chairman Deren Ibrahim

GILLINGHAM goalkeeper coach Deren Ibrahim believes more professional footballers should invest their time in their home town football clubs.

The 33-year-old played for Dartford, Sittingbourne (loan), Margate (loan), Maidstone United (loan), Leatherhead (loan), Tonbridge Angels (loan), before leaving Princes Park to play for Cray Valley (Paper Mills) and Tonbridge Angels permanently.

Ibrahim kept goal for Gibraltar’s international team on eight occasions, making his debut against Belgium in a 6-0 defeat in a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier, with Christian Benteke scoring after only six seconds, which was a record at the time.

Ibrahim lives in Hextable and is the chairman of Sutton Athletic, a side that are now in sixteenth-place in the ninth-tier Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division table, having picked up 11 points from their first 11 games.

Peter Nolan’s side claimed a 2-0 home win over Tunbridge Wells last Sunday, which attracted the club’s second largest crowd, when 328 flocked to Lower Road in Hextable.

“It’s been a brilliant day on the pitch,” said Ibrahim.

“It’s a fantastic achievement for the club, we’ve had some real good feedback but to win 2-0 is just the icing on the cake.

“I think we’ve been performing well in games but we needed the three points.  Winning’s what matters at this level but off the pitch it’s hopefully shown that we’re not here just to take part, we want Sutton to be like a good SCEFL Premier League club off the pitch with the facilities and hopefully with the crowd we got, we can give the people of Hextable, Swanley and Wilmington to come and support us a bit more often.

“I believe we are a big club in this area. We’ve got 18 youth teams with under 23s included in that so we’ve got the infrastructure to kick on again, that’s sort of the aim what I want to try to give the club.

“With my job I can’t be here on match-days but the committee people, my family members that are here working, are doing that on a regular basis.”

Ibrahim revealed he was approached by Sutton Athletic stalwarts Guy Eldridge and John Ball to take the helm while he held the role of youth team chairman.

“It is a tough one because I’ve been involved in this club for about five years so I started the youth section five years ago with one team and it’s grown and Guy and John they sort of spoke to me about Christmas time and said they were stepping aside, did I want to do it?

“My first initial reaction was ‘no!’ because when I do something I want to give it 110% and knowing I couldn’t be here on matchdays that was a challenge.

“But I spoke to my dad, my wife and other family members and it was like ‘go for it!’,

“I’ve got some real good friends who help run the kitchen, we’ve just appointed a director of youth, so we’ve got a real good infostructure here which allows me to sort of focus on Gillingham on the Saturday but Monday to Friday after three o’clock I’m full stream ahead with Sutton.

“I’m not here just to make up the numbers and I know this club over the years have grinded results out to stay in the league but I don’t want that. I don’t want to be known as Sutton where teams come and it’s an easy three points. I want teams to come here and really work for it.”

Chairman Ibrahim has big plans for his home-town club.

“I want to take this club up the league’s.  This is not a short-term project; this is a long-term project.

“We’re doing a lot of work with the council to try to bring more infrastructure to the club. We’re trying to involve more people from Hextable.

“We’re trying to work with the local area to try to get our attendances up regularly. This is the only licenced bar in Hextable, so we’re tying to see that on a week night with live football (on the television).

“This club has got so much potential.

“I’ve been involved with Dartford but why can’t we be the second best club in this area, where if Dartford are playing away, their supporters can come and watch us.”

Ibrahim parted company with Ryan Huckle on 19 August after Huckle was given his first managerial job at this level on 17 January to replace Daniel Kelly.

Nolan left their lower-league tenants FC Elmstead to manage Sutton Athletic, who have won three wins, drawn six and lost twice on his watch since taking over.

“Ryan Huckle, what a fantastic guy and I won’t have anyone say a bad word about him,” said Ibrahim.

“He was brilliant for the time that he was here.  From a chairman point of view, I learnt a lot from him and he will go on and have a fantastic career in coaching and management.

“I felt that we needed a little bit of know-how of the level, a little bit of knowhow of players and Pete fit the bill.

“I’ve known Pete over the course of a couple of years through him being the manager at Elmstead and my role of chairman of the youth section here where we come and watched a couple of games and when we made the decision to change Ryan, we felt it was probably a good fit for us.

“Pete is someone who knows the club, knew what we were trying to achieve and knew what kind of budget we were working at as well.

“We’re competitive and Pete will help us to get to new levels. I’m not saying new levels is promotion but I’m saying new levels is being competitive and seeing where it takes us over the next five years.”

Paul Springett played for Erith & Belvedere and is now running the ship as joint-chairman over at Park View Road – but there aren’t many former players taking a keen interest in their home town or former clubs and Ibrahim is keen for that to change.

“Geordie (Springett) is a fantastic guy. His boy Jude used to play in our under 14’s last year, so I spoke to Paul a lot over the summer.  I have reached out to a lot of chairmen and managers as well at this level," said Ibrahim.

“Without sounding, my sort of remit has been League Two, League One with Gillingham, so this is the unknown for me at this level, so just finding out what makes a club at Step Five  tick and I think what we’ve got to try and do where and what Geordie is trying to achieve at Erith & Belvedere, which is a real community family based club when people come they just don’t come as a dad or as a granddad they bring their wives and kids.

“The feedback we’ve been getting is that it’s a really good family environment for people to come as a whole to enjoy their Saturday afternoons.

“Yes, I am a chairman but I want to be more than that. I want to build, not a legacy, that’s the wrong word, but I want to build a community for Hextable, Swanley and Wilmington, where people come and support their local club and their local football club is Sutton Athletic and that’s what I’ll be most proud of.

“Just because I work in League Two, I’ve got ambitions to go and be a goalie coach at the highest level and that’s my ambition and that’s what I want to work my socks off for.

“This is another ambition where I want to build and I want to build a structure where people can come on a Saturday at three o’clock or on a Wednesday night and be proud.

“We changed our midweek games to Wednesday night here because Wednesday’s are my days off from Gillingham.  Elmstead groundshare here as well, so it allows me to be here on a Wednesday evening.

“To be honest, I’ve think I’ve watched more Elmstead games here than I have Sutton games!

“I am the chairman but I’ve got some real, real good people involved at the club. I bring my dad, he watched me everywhere. When I played at Dartford he came and watches me at Gills. 

“I get trusted feedback from him and that’s what you need. If I didn’t have people I could trust then I wouldn’t be in the position to do the job.”