You can't win the Kent League by playing Barcelona type football, says VCD boss Ricky Bennett

VCD ATHLETIC manager Ricky Bennett says he wants his side to win the Kent League title next April.



The Crayford based club finished in third place last season and they won the Kent League Cup for the second time in their history, when highly-rated striker, James Duckworth scored both goals to sink ten-man Corinthian at Cray Valley’s Badgers Sports Ground in April.

Vickers have won the first major piece of silverware this season when they defeated the Kent League champions Herne Bay 3-2 at Winch’s Field at the weekend to lift the Kent Challenge Shield.

With new coach, Bill Walton, coming in and bringing his eye-pleasing brand of carpet football to the club, after leaving Fisher after just one season, the men in green and white hoops played an off-colour Herne Bay side off the park.

An excellent 20-yard free-kick from Jimmy Rogers and Aiden Pursgloves’ penalty gave Vickers a 2-0 lead inside the opening 17 minutes, before James Duckworth went on a solo run and slotted home after rounding goalkeeper Dan Eason with 12 minutes remaining.

Herne Bay scored two flattering goals in the final seven minutes, courtesy of a headed own-goal from Vickers’ right-back Jack Asbury, and Calum McGeeghan’s effort looped off Chris Hill to find the roof of the net.

What concerned the Herne Bay faithful was the lack of pace in the side and Simon Halsey, who began his coaching career at Oakwood, certainly missed wingers Dan Lawrence (one of four players to jump ship to sign for Faversham Town), Rhys Lawson (holiday) and prolific striker, Byron Walker.

Bennett said: “In the two seasons since me and Silky (Andy Silk, who returned from Spain yesterday) have been in, we know what it’s like to win the Kent League.  You can’t win the Kent League by playing Barcelona type football. It’s no good.  It looks nice but it doesn’t win you anything. We’re trying to mix it up. We’re looking to play decent football and we know when to do the ugly bits.”

Bennett and Silk – who both won back-to-back Kent League titles as players with Cray Wanderers in 2002 and 2003 – want to experience the same this season.

Bennett said: “We want to go and won the League, like probably four or five others are saying as well.

“We’ve improved gradually.  Alright, we were third again. We should have been second but we should have been closer to Herne Bay. We had a blip in the last ten games of the season and now we feel what we’ve done in two years it’s now time to push that little bit further.

“We’ve not got any more  budget from what we’ve had before so it’s about picking the right players’ for the squad and the right way of playing.  Hopefully, we’ll be there or there abouts.”

When asked about squad numbers for the season ahead, Bennett, who was without the likes of Jack Bradshaw (holiday), George Mitchell (back), Billy Shinners (knee), Lawrence Collins and summer signing from Tunbridge Wells, Gary Clarke at Winch’s Field at the weekend, Bennett replied, “We’ve talked about it.  Some of the lads know, we can’t have a big squad this year so unfortunately I’ve got to be a bit ruthless between now and the end of pre-season.  I’d like to do it as soon as I can. I don’t want to string people along all the way pre-season and say thanks but no thanks but it’s going to be difficult.

“I’ve got an idea of my starting eleven, but now we’ve got players coming back over the next two games who need to get minutes so I’m going to have a look at everyone.”

VCD Athletic welcome Ian Jenkins’ Cray Wanderers to Oakwood tonight – and Bennett is looking forward to welcoming some friends.

“Love Jenko, Joey Francis, Blado (Paul Blade).  It’s always nice to catch up with them and play a proper football team, but it’s what we want,” said Bennett.

“We try to plan our pre-season games where we’re playing decent, higher opposition, rather than teams lower where you don’t get much out of it.

“It’s not really important about the results. It’s about how we contend about the bigger boys and against Dartford and Welling we done that. Alright, we lost both games and Cray will be another stern test.”

Meanwhile, Terry Groom, who has tattoos of the badges of Cray Wanderers and VCD Athletic on his left leg and right leg respectively, has left Cray Wanderers (and their youth-team set-up) to join Ryman League Division One North side Chatham Town.

Visit VCD Athletic’s website: www.vcdathletic.co.uk

VCD Athletic  v  Cray Wanderers
Pre-Season Friendly
Tuesday 24^th July 2012
Kick Off 7:45pm
At Oakwood, Old Road, Crayford, Kent DA1 4DN