Herne Bay joint-boss John Embery: Do you know what, I know where I want to be, I know where we can be – I want to be in the play-offs

HERNE BAY joint-manager John Embery says he wants his side to carry on with their momentum and start climbing up the league table.

The Bay eased past a poor and physical Witham Town side 2-1 on Saturday to book a home tie against Needham Market in The Buildbase FA Trophy Second Qualifying Round on Saturday 10 November.

Herne Bay are struggling at the foot of the Bostik South East Division table with a win and two draws from their eight league outings and they host fifth-placed side VCD Athletic at Winch’s Field this coming Saturday.

“Looking forward to it because we know we’ve got players coming back, hopefully we’ve got a couple of new signings coming in as well,” said Embery.

Embery wants his side to start climbing up the league table and snatch a play-off place.

“Do you know what, I know where I want to be, I know where we can be – I want to be in the play-offs,” he said.

“We’re good enough, we just need to get on a roll. We need players not getting injured, scoring goals and we’re not conceding many.  If you look at the games we’ve played, we’re getting beat by the one goal and a few penalties.  Saturday was good, we didn’t concede a penalty so we’ve got to build on it because we have got the quality.”

Managers are struggling to come to terms with the one game a week in the Bostik League this season owing to the reduced teams in each division, while this time last year teams were playing Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday and so on for a number of weeks.

“It does have an effect, it’s stop-start. We’ve had one midweek game and we had three Saturday’s on the bounce when we didn’t play.  It stops the momentum,” added Embery.

Meanwhile, Kent coast rivals Ramsgate have re-signed centre-half Ollie Gray for a two-month period from Southern Combination side Eastbourne Town.

Gray was forced to leave the Rams at the end of last season as he moved to Eastbourne for university but he is back in Kent for a work-placement and has jumped at the chance of returning to Southwood Stadium.

Gray scooped the players’ player-of-the-year award at Ramsgate last season and has attracted interest from higher league clubs in Sussex following a number of impressive performances for Eastbourne Town.

“I’m really pleased to announce the return of Ollie Gray back to Ramsgate,” manager Lloyd Blackman told www.ramsgate-fc.co.uk.

“As we all know Ollie had to leave in the summer because of a fantastic opportunity to further his education but he’s back in Kent on a work placement for the next two months.

“A tireless and professional player whose experience is invaluable to these young players.”