Let’s hope we can finish the season without any disruption and everyone’s hard work can be rightly rewarded, says Deal Town coach Steve King

DEAL TOWN coach Steve King hopes the Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division campaign is completed so everyone’s hard work can be rightly rewarded after the previous two were abandoned due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Deal Town are in sixth-place in the league table, having collected 37 points from 17 league games and travel to Aylesford to play Barry Morgan’s K Sports tomorrow.

The Paperboys are in twelfth-place in the pecking order with 26 points from 19 games and only need four more points to avoid relegation.

“It will be a tough game at K Sports.  They have had a good season and played well at Sheppey (in a 2-0 defeat) last week,” said King.

“Due to the Covid outbreak in the squad we haven’t been together since our game against Fisher on 18 December, so we are all looking forward to getting back out there.

“K Sports have got some good players and are used to playing on their 3G pitch, so we will need to make sure we are at our best to get a result.”

Deal Town’s home game against their nearest rivals, Canterbury City, was postponed on 27 December due to a Covid-19 outbreak.

“It has not been easy and a number of players and staff, including myself, have been affected over the Christmas period,” revealed King.

“We were really disappointed that this meant the postponement of the Canterbury game as we were expecting a big crowd and we are on a good run.

“Thankfully the squad are clear currently but I am sure everyone will continue to be impacted over the next month.”

Looking ahead to their remaining 21 league games, King said: “We will be looking to continue our good form. We won 15 of our last 19 games in all competitions and have set a high standard.

“We have a lot of big games left to play and that will tell us where we are when competing against the big sides in the division.

“We want to finish as high as we can in the league and see how far we can progress in the two cups that we are left in.

“We have been really pleased with how the season has gone so far but with at least 23 games to play there will still be a number of twists and turns.”

King added: “Happy New Year to all our supporters and all those involved in Kent football. Let’s hope we can finish the season without any disruption and everyone’s hard work can be rightly rewarded.”

Morgan said he is looking to bounce back after losing to his former club, Sheppey United, last time out.

"We've got another big game coming up tomorrow against Deal," said Morgan.

"We've been on a winless run for the last few games, however, we're not too worried, as these defeats have been mostly against teams from the higher end of the table.

"In our last game against Sheppey, we were a decent equal to our opponents and arguably deserved something from the game.

"We go into tomorrow's game with a couple more players available, so hopefully we can go one better.

"As far as Covid is concerned, we haven't been too badly hit, probably because our squad is so young.

"We will be looking to consolidate on what we've already achieved.  We are a brand new team, as all previous players left from the outgoing management.

"I've been fortunate to be able to call upon a lot of youth players from our under 18s to keep us ticking along, but from now on until the end of the season we want to concentrate on coaching our young squad to make us even more competitive for next season.

"Slowly the lads are gaining experience, maybe our results will start improving now."

Visit Deal Town’s website: www.dealtownfc.co.uk

K Sports  v  Deal Town
Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division
Bank Holiday Monday 3 January 2022
Kick Off 3:00pm
at Cobdown, Station Road, Ditton, Aylesford, Kent ME20 6AU