We've got some exciting times to come at Ashford Town, insists Thorogood - EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Ashford Town chairman Mr Tim Thorogood believes there are “exciting” times ahead for the club - once they maintain their Ryman League Division One South status, writes Stephen McCartney.

The Nuts & Bolts have collected 22 points from their 23 league games this season and after losing to Kentish rivals Chatham Town and Dover Athletic during the past seven days are currently in the drop zone.

But Mr Thorogood has faith in sole manager John Cumberbatch to claw the club out of the relegation zone and put to an end a miserable three year spell for the club.

“I think that we’ve got some really exciting times at the club,” Mr Thorogood said EXCLUSIVLY to www.kentishfootball.co.uk BEFORE their two derby defeats.

“I don’t tend to make rash statements, statements are for people to sit and criticise when it don’t happen but we’re looking at ways of implementing ways of going forward.

“I wouldn’t say we are a kind of sleeping giant because I think that’s a naff comment as well but we are a club with a chance to get good support.

“We’ve got a great catchment area, we have got, without fail, a good amount of people and Ashford is an expanding area.

“There could be a lot of interest in this football club in times to come because I’ve been around for a while and players now want to come and play here and there’s a good atmosphere at the club.

“There are other things in the pipeline for the future and if I’m being honest, I want us to win some silverware. I’d love us to win something and I’d love to see the fans come back and see a smile on people’s faces.

“We need to get all these negative thoughts about Ashford, get up the table, get some good performances and good results and hopefully we’ll win the people back and people will show an interest in this football club because I know without fail it can happen.”

The visit of Dover Athletic, who returned to the top of the Ryman League Division One South table with their comfortable 3-0 win over Ashford Town yesterday, attracted the largest crowd of the season to The Homelands when 557 flocked through the turnstiles.

And Ashford’s recent visit to Dartford, where they lost a thrilling game 4-3, attracted a crowd of 1,470.

“I thought their support was phenomenal and I think it’s great and it just shows you what can happen at a football club,” said Mr Thorogood.

“That can happen at Ashford. We need fresh impetus into the club. Yes, we do need fresh money into the cub.

“We need to get fresh avenues and we need to look into other things. That’s not the only reason about coming out as manager. You can’t look at other aspects that go on, now you can look at things in a bit more of a cold light of day, with slightly less pressure and have more time and energy to do it and hopefully we can bring some good stuff to this club.”

Mr Thorogood admitted their ground needs a bit of tender loving care.

“It needs a bit of tidying up,” admitted Mr Thorogood. “To spend a lot of money on the stadium means we can’t spend it on the football field.

“We certainly need to smarten the place up and we all know that we need to bring a fresh impetus and fresh image to the club.

“But that will take a bit of time but again things can change and we are looking at ways and avenues to do that.

“We have great facilities and what we have got here is we’ve got a great bunch of people here that are running the football club, who care about this football club.

“There’s a lot of good people, from the bar staff upwards. We have a lot of really good people and all we really need to do is to get the people, the punters to come back to want to watch the football.

“Dartford didn’t play in front of 1,500 people last year and now they are. So we can do it, we will do it, but we’ve got a lot of work to do but we will do it.

“We’ve beaten the better sides in this league and we’ve competed against the better sides in this league and to be honest with you, we’ve got several games in hand and if we win these, get a bit of momentum, we will do well.

“My goals is to enjoy my football. I want to see this football club thrive. I want to see the players enjoying it.

“There is definitely a different attitude at this football club and things are going to change - we are going to bring some good things to this football club.”

Mr Thorogood has issued a rallying cry to the residents of Ashford to emulate the residents of Dartford and Dover who follow their clubs with passion.

“A lot of people are critical (of Dover) sometimes,” he said. “Someone said to me “are Dover a big club?”

“Well, yes, they are a big club. Why would anyone want to criticise them? Good luck to them.

“I wish we got that kind of support from a town that’s got a 100,000 plus population.”

With an average of 204, Mr Thorogood added: “That is a disaster but that can change. We’ve seen a lot of people not come to football here for whatever reason.

“I’m sure Dartford have said the same thing but you’re right, the Dartford’s and the Dover’s are what we all need to look at.

“We need to bring good football to this town. Dover have always done well, have always been up the but let’s be fair, a little while ago they were going bankrupt and were in trouble.

“We are not going bankrupt.  We are certainly nowhere near that sort of situation but we need to get the people in this town to want to be interested in this football club.”

Mr Thorogood criticised the people that come from Ashford and support Premiership clubs Charlton Athletic and Chelsea.

“If I’m being honest, League football is over publicised and there’s too much of it,” he said.

“People come down here to watch grass roots football and there’s some good entertainment to be found in grass roots football.

“People have to take a bit more interest because a lot of these people’s kids are not going to be playing at Man Utd or Arsenal. There going to be playing at the likes of Ashford Town and the town wants to start realising that if they back their own town it’s there own kids their backing.

“You can go and back Man Utd all day long but no disrespect, they don’t really care about you.

“This town does and we want people to come here. We want their kids and junior football here and we want to expand the youth policy.

“We done that with the under 16’s with what Vince Shell has done, which hopefully next year will come to fruitution with some great guidance from Vince.

“It needs these quality kids that have been around for a long while to come here. Get the 16’s to come through and playing for the first team.

“Joe Hitchings is a great example of that, a great prospect, sixteen year’s of age, he’s signed a contract for the club and he’s an Ashford lad and he’s the future of this football club.

“We want our local home grown players here. Yes, we will always have players from outside but ultimately we want this club to have more of a family feel and feel good factor but that will come in time.

“No disrespect but do people go to Charlton and come away feeling that’s their team? They live in Ashford but hold up, people say that I live in Bexley and is Ashford my team?

“Well, Ashford is my team because I’ve bankrolled this club for seven years. This is my team. I don’t want to watch top level football any more. I’m not even interested in top level football any more. I’m interested in Ashford Town Football Club.

“It’s become a passion for me and I love this football club and I want to see this football club achieve something because I want to be proud of something.

“I may not be proud of my own record as a manager and I’m not very proud of it but there’s more than one way of skinning the cat but at the end of the day regardless of what I am as a manager I’m also the owner of this football club and I want to see this football club have success.”

Stepping down as joint-manager has helped Mr Thorogood have a different perspective on what goes on at the club - both on and off the field.

He said: “I’m a volatile, passionate individual, I think people know that and I think when you’re under the amount of pressure that I’ve been under, coming away as manager you can look at things in a different perspective.

“A lot of people may think I’m not a nice individual but those people don’t even know me.

“Sometimes I’ve not always acted in a particularly dignified manner and I’m sure many people will say that now I look at things differently.

“I come to football to enjoy it to see my side play because I want to see them do well.

“I’ve not got a constant pressure from players from everything else that goes on, from the day-to-day running at this football club.

“If people want to come here and have a chat with me before or after the game the door is open.

“Hopefully I’ll see them in the bar and if anybody feels they want to make an appointment to come and see me on another day, if I’ve got the time to do that, unfortunately I’m a working man same as the rest, I’m willing to speak to anybody.

“What we want is people to maybe understand what’s happened at this football club, maybe understand me a bit better and at the end of the day I’ve made mistakes but I’ve also done a lot of good for this football club.”

But Mr Thorogood insists the future of The Homelands is in safe hands.

“This football club will play at this stadium,” he said. “There’s no ifs or buts about that.

“This football club is in safe hands, without fail, and this football club will be here, hopefully forever. It will certainly out see my lifetime.

“As far as I’m aware, the new owners (of the stadium) who we have had some preliminary chats with, I have to say they’ve been absolutely fabulous.

“We’ve shared a couple of meetings now. They’ve been to the football club, they’ve come to the football and they want to se football in this community.

“We’ve got some of the landlords we could ever wish for in my opinion.

“We’ve now got a landlord who in my opinion loves football, wants football in this community and will take an interest how well this club does for the town. These are real football people, real people.”

Visit Ashford Town's website:  www.ashfordtownfc.co.uk

Ashford Town v Leatherhead
Ryman League Division One South
Tuesday 6^th February 2007
Kick Off 7:45pm
At The Homelands, Ashford Road, Kingsnorth, Ashford, Kent TN26 1NJ

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