New bosses looking to bring stability and structure to Kent Football United
After a tough season last time out Kent Football United will be hoping for less drama and more points whenever the 2020/21 campaign gets underway.
James and Lloyd Bradley have come in as Joint-Managers, Ben Kirk is the new First Team Coach and a new identity is on the way to the First Division side.
Lloyd spoke to the Kent Football United Facebook Page about their early plans;
Our Management team will consist of myself and James as Joint-Managers, with Ben Kirk as First Team coach. Our main priority is to add a match day Physio to our team, less of a priority will be to add a Goalkeeping coach, as James is an outstanding keeper coach and will be setting up extensive drills for the keepers during preseason and any trials that take place.
We were drawn to KFU after initially approaching the club for a ground share for our previous club Tudor Sports. After our meeting with Roy and Sam it was obvious to myself and James that we had so much in common, not only were we both father and son teams, but also our views on the game were very similar and had both built clubs from nothing. Roy and Sam had done a wonderful job in getting KFU to the level they are today and the great thing for us is that they still have tremendous enthusiasm to take the club even further. We came out of that meeting and both said that this was a club we would like to be a part of. Because of the poor run of form the club was suffering towards the end of the season, we thought the club might be looking to make a change for the coming season, so I decided to contact Roy and ask if he would consider us as candidates for the Manager’s role if any changes were made. After a further meeting with Roy we were absolutely thrilled to be offered the job. I really feel we will be a great fit for each other and we definitely share Roy and Sam’s ambition for the club.
Our short term plan is to bring some much needed stability to the team and bring in some structure and a new identity. Next season we will be looking for at least mid table mediocrity, but would hope we can aim a little bit higher than that if things go to plan. Recruitment will be key and James has been working flat out on this throughout the lockdown. Our own players that we are bringing to the club can’t wait to get started and have been working on their own fitness before preseason starts. We feel with all the upheaval for all teams within the league we are coming in at the perfect time, many of the teams we will be up against will have struggled financially and playing budgets may well be reduced, which may help to create a much more level playing field.
Our medium term plan is to gradually improve the playing squad to a level that can challenge for a top six position. Again recruitment will be key to any progress, but we are hopeful that some of our own players will improve and establish themselves at this level.
Our long term aim is obviously to produce a team that is capable of promotion. This will take a lot of hard work and effort from everyone involved, but is something we feel that with the backing of Roy and Sam can genuinely be achieved.
Because of our previous involvement with the SCEFL myself and James have followed the fortunes of the league with interest and it was clear from early on that consistency was everything and most teams had good runs at some point or other, but the 3 teams at the top were certainly more consistent than most of the others and I felt that these 3 were pretty much guaranteed to go up, but below that it was going to be a real bun fight between SC Thamesmead, Rochester United, FC Elmstead and Stansfeld, as to who would grab the last promotion place and again whoever could hold there nerve and be consistent would have won out in the end. Below the top 7 there were 2 groups of 5 teams with mid-table group was separated by just 7 points and then the bottom group 9 points adrift of mid-table. So we have plenty of food for thought for the coming season.
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