We don't want to be struggling against relegation next year, says Lane

Tuesday 04th May 2010

MARK LANE has thrown away his caretaker broom - as he was appointed Whitstable Town’s new manager at the weekend, writes Stephen McCartney.

Lane, 49, who resides in Gravesend and runs three leisure centres, fought off competition from six other candidates to land the job permanently at Belmont Road.

Clint Gooding will remain as player-assistant manager, and Lane is destined to appoint a new coach later in the week once formalities are complete.

Lane guided the club towards Ryman League Division One South safety in the ten games that he was caretaker manager - with a record of six wins and a draw to finish eleven points clear of the drop zone.

“I had an interview last Monday with the committee for two hours, me and Clint, and got a phone call Sunday saying that we got the job,“ a really pleased Lane told www.kentishfootball.co.uk this evening.

“Having had a long ten games saying that maybe we won’t be taking it, we finally sat down and had a meting between ourselves and decided it was too good an opportunity to miss for us and that’s why we put our names in the hat.

“I mean, ten games is only ten games of the season at the end of the day. We had a remit and I suppose when it comes to it we kept them in the Ryman League - or the players have kept it in the Ryman League.

“We’ve got a bit of a taste for it. It’s alright at the moment because we were winning more games than we were losing and sometimes I think what it would have been like if we lost more games. Maybe I wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much?

“You take what’s around the corner and you give it your best shot and thankfully we kept them up.”

Lane has spoken to all of his players, apart from one, but will need to sit down with the club’s committee later this week to discuss his playing budget.

“I’ve certainly spoken to all the players at the club, apart from David Cory, who is over in Thailand at the moment on holiday,” revealed Lane.

“We’ve invited them all back for pre-season training. We believe the players we’ve got are good enough to play in the Ryman League but we just need four, maybe five, more players in specific positions with a little bit more experience to help us out.

“We’re actively speaking to people, like other managers in Kent are doing at the moment.

“I’ve got to sit down with the committee and Joe (Brownett, my chairman) tomorrow night and Thursday night and go through the budget.

“I believe it’s going to be similar to what it was last year so at the moment I don’t know what it is because I wasn’t involved in that for the last ten games.”

Lane is set to unveil a coach to take the pressure slightly of himself and Gooding, who wants to don the red shirt next season.

“I’ve thrown away the broom slightly yes, me and Clint are looking forward to it,” said Lane.

” We’re trying to bring in another person with us, at the moment we haven’t got confirmation if that person is coming in or not - and what we’re trying to do is dilute a little bit of the workload that we’ve got to do because we’ve got jobs outside of work.

“So I’m looking for somebody to come in and do some coaching for us and also take a bit of strain of Clint as he wants to play as well as be assistant manager.

“Hopefully after Thursday’s meeting there might be another person in the management team with us and we’ll let everyone know as and when.”

Lane has worked under the likes of John Roles, Matt Toms, Marc Seager and Mark Munday during his eight years with the club - and has learnt a lot during that time.

“There’s a lot of experience there and a lot of things that you learn,” added Lane. “It’s the right time to take the job and we’ll just have to see how we get on.”

When asked about the calibre of candidate that he beat to land the job, Lane replied, “I don’t really know, I think there was five or six from what I was told by the committee last Monday. What the calibre of those people were or who they were, I wasn’t party to.”

But Lane wants to hit the ground running - they ended this season with four straight wins - and improve on the club’s position in the bottom five of the Ryman League Division One South table.

“We made it quite clear that we don’t want to be struggling against relegation next year,” said Lane.

“It’s important to get a set of players, we can do our hard training and our ball work and our fitness and get a decent start.

“For the last three years we’ve had a terrible start and we’ve been playing catching up the wrong side of Christmas so I think the main aim is to get a decent start in the first ten to eleven games and then se where we go from there.”

Visit Whitstable Town’s website: www.whitstabletownfc.co.uk (currently offline at present)