Team nights out will help our promotion cause, says Brady

RICHARD BRADY says a good camaraderie exists at Sittingbourne and that will help with the club’s promotion push this season, writes Stephen McCartney.

The Brickies player-assistant, who is also the club’s leading goalscorer, netted his sixteenth goal of the season last weekend, bundling home Sittingbourne’s equaliser during the 1-1 draw against fellow promotion candidates Ashford Town.

Ashford had the better of a dull first half and they broke the deadlock inside 28 seconds of the second half when Orlando Smith, a striker on loan from Blue Square South side Welling United, capitalised on an error from goalkeeper Matt Reed to volley into an empty net from the edge of the box.

But Brady pounced on substitute Ellie Kayembe’s 76^th minute pull-back to level for Sittingbourne and the Brickies created more chances to go on and snatch a late winner.

Sittingbourne travel to new league leaders Worthing on Saturday in what can be described as another mouth-watering clash as only six points separate both sides - Sittingbourne are presently in seventh place.

And Brady, speaking to www.kentishfootball.co.uk following their derby day draw at Bourne Park last weekend, says togetherness with all playing staff will help the club clinch promotion at the end of the season.

“Me and Gary came in last year and made massive strides,” said Brady.

“People don’t see what goes on off the pitch with the training that we do. We’re always working hard in training, working on patterns of play and what we can do on the pitch.

“And (to help with) camaraderie, we also have team nights out and stuff like that. We’ve been to the dogs, bowling and everyone wants to be together.

“It’s the first real football team I’ve been in where everyone gets on with each other and with that you get that little but extra, rather than people saying he’s on that money or he’s on that, we don’t have that problem.”

Brady is pleased with the group of players that he and boss Gary Abbott now have at their disposal at Bourne Park.

“We’ve got fifteen games to go and for myself and Gary’s point of view is that this is the best squad we’ve had by a mile,” said Brady.

“From the beginning of the season we’ve picked up points and now we’re really got to go on. We’ve got nothing to fear.

“We just feel it’s there for us, we’ve got a lot of confidence in the boys and we think we’re going to go on a good run and be at least in the play-off shake up if not, even go on and do what we can to even win it.”

Abbott, meanwhile, also speaking to www. Last weekend, wants pay-back on a Worthing side that completed a smash-and-grab raid at Bourne Park in January.

But he warned, “Every game is tough in this league, whether they’re at the bottom or the top.

“But Worthing will know they’ll be in for a game, because when we played them here about a month ago I thought there was only one team in it.

“On another night we could have scored eight, but they’ve got a goal, one shot that’s gone in, so I thought they were lucky on the day, so we’re going to go over there, give it a right go.

“They’ll be more worried about us; we’ll go and try and hopefully get three points and try and keep a little run going and not get beat.”

Visit Sittingbourne’s website: www.sittingbournefc.co.uk

Worthing v Sittingbourne
Ryman League Division One South
Saturday 21^st February 2009
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Woodside Road, Worthing, West Sussex RH13 5AD