Success for this club would be top 10 finish, cup semi-final and beyond, says Holmesdale boss Lee Roots

HOLMESDALE manager Lee Roots says a top ten finish and a place in the Semi-Finals of the Challenge Cup would be a success for the Bromley based outfit this season.

 

Holmesdale reached the Quarter-Finals of the Southern Counties East Football League Challenge Cup after beating Tunbridge Wells 3-0 at Oakley Road last night.

Winger Reuel Powell-Downey scored a brace with long-range finishes and striker Kameiko Pope-Campbell was also on the scoresheet to book the club a place in the last eight.

However, Roots revealed that his 11-goal talisman Nathan Palmer has left the club.

“Nathan’s moved on, all on good terms.  I’d like to just say my absolute gratitude to Nathan,” said Roots.

“I hold him in a very high regard on and off the pitch. We’ve been in numerous talks, he’s gone on to look at some other challenges.

“He’s been at the club and given incredible service and he’s been single-handedly one of the reasons why we’ve been promoted but he’s got a few opportunities from a few higher leagues and he might want to go and challenge himself.

“Whatever Nathan decides to do from us as a club and me, he’ll get nothing but full support. The door is open to him here but he’s just looking at some other things and we respect it so he’s not around at the moment.”

Roots admitted it was a weird feeling that his chairman Keith Bird left the club to become the manager of league rivals Canterbury City on 18 January.

“I think it’s a unique situation, I’ve not come across it myself, none of my previous chairmen have gone into active management in the same league,” said Roots.

“Keith’s a great guy, I can’t say anything bad about Keith. He was very good and supportive towards me here.

“I think he’s always had an ambition to move a football club in a direction with him involved in the footballing side of it.

“He was happy with the work we were doing here.  Canterbury financially probably need a bit boostering and he’s gone there.

“It’s disappointing for me and the club to lose somebody like that who was new coming in, giving us new direction but Ray Tolfrey built this club from day dot and I think it’s important he’s here while we’re being successful.

“He’s already made a couple of changes with a few things which is looking promising. It’s kind of back to the old guard but it’s a new era of the new guard, if that makes sense?”

Roots has guided Holmesdale to eleventh-place back in the Premier Division, having collected 31 points from 22 games, safe from relegation in their first season back in the top-flight.

Last night’s game against Tunbridge Wells had two very highly-rated goalkeepers in Aaron Lee-Wharton for the opposition and in between the sticks for Holmesdale, Nathan Edwards.

You have to wonder why don’t higher league scouts attend Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division games and give these players a chance.

“So true, where are they? They’re here, they’re honest, they’re local, they’re active, they’re playing,” said Roots, who is in negotiations with their National League neighbours Bromley about bringing in their younger players to Oakley Road to experience the rough and tumble of ninth-tier football.

“Nathan actually came to play for me (at Forest Hill Park) as a centre-back and then he played in goal. He is a goalkeeper by trade but I agree, where are the people looking at him?

“Where are they, looking at this kind of talent? He could easily go and play higher.  I think he will. He’s very loyal to me and we’re not holding him back but I agree if you look at him on a borderline, he’s absolutely fantastic,” added Roots.

Roots revealed that he’s bringing in his players for training on Saturday ahead of their trip to fellow midtable side Bearsted next Tuesday.

“We are actually going to get the lads in on Saturday and we will be working here with the whole squad training and working in house,” said Roots.

“We then go to Bearsted next Tuesday, a very tough place to go. A team that kind of finishes in the same spots every year, a good footballing side, we’ve had them watched and then we have Chatham come here (on 12 January), a very, very good team.

“After that we have a slightly more convenient run of games, shall we say, where we don’t have to play sides chasing for the title.

“We did a very good account of ourselves here against Sheppey on Saturday (losing 1-0 against the second-placed side), a really, really good account of ourselves against a very good side so we feel confident.”

Holmesdale are just one point behind K Sports in tenth-place and seven points behind eighth-placed side Kennington but with three games in hand on Dan Scorer's Ashford-based side -  and Roots is targeting a top ten finish and to go at least one more round in the Challenge Cup.

“I feel success is we have got to continue to bank on the work that we’ve done. If we drop a few places, for me that would be underachieving,” said Roots.

“Success for us I think is a top eight or top 10 finish, which I think would be huge for this club.

“I think to progress again in the next round of the cup, so to get in the last four of the Challenge Cup would be huge for the club but I think for us if we can break the top 10 mark, of course then we would want to better that next year and that’s a huge progression, rather than coming seventeenth or sixteenth, which is no disgrace.

“We’re not happy with and we want to climb a few more spots.  We’re very proud of the defensive record (fifth best defence in the division), that’s come from the coaching side but success for this club would be top 10, cup semi-final and beyond.”