We're bottom at the moment and we need to pick up points, says Holmesdale boss Byron Beard

HOLMESDALE manager Byron Beard says the only way is up for the struggling  club.

The Dalers are bottom of the Southern Counties East Football League table on 8 points from 16 games.

They suffered humiliation on Wednesday night, suffering a 7-2 home defeat to Tunbridge Wells.  The team have conceded 63 goals in the league but are only one point behind Deal Town.

Holmesdale welcome Lordswood to Oakley Road tomorrow.  Lordswood are sitting in the top six and their manager James Collins watched Holmesdale’s 12^th league defeat of the season in midweek.

“Up, it’s the only way we can go,” replied Beard, the former Orpington manager when asked where do Holmesdale go from here.

“We’re bottom at the moment, we need to pick up points.

“In our team we’ve got quality. We’ve got the likes of Shawn Beveney, Quentin Conteh, Josh Froggatt, you can go right through. Players who can bolster that in Joe Jackson and Danny Akers.

“It takes a little bit of cohesion and time for them to get to know how each other are playing but once we’re there I think we will climb the table.

“I can see us finishing fourteenth in this league and hopefully the chairman sees that as well.

“It may look bad (losing 7-2) and yes it was a poor day at the office but I think there’s good signs coming through and once this team starts to gel I don’t think we’ll have too many issues.”

Beard appreciates the backing from his chairman Mark Harris, but he knows with relegation this season, he has to string the results together to beat the drop.

“Mark’s very supportive. He knows what I’ve come into and what was left here and with a change of manager there’s a change of players and there’s some unrest and transition and that’s what we’re in at the moment, we’re in a transition.”

The club were expected to sign former Faversham Town goalkeeper Rob French on Wednesday night but a move has stalled.

Beard revealed in his post-match interview after the Tunbridge Wells shocker that “Rob was here tonight, we have signed him.”

But French confirmed on Thursday that: “I haven’t signed for Holmesdale. I never signed any forms as I said I was speaking to other clubs as well.”

Goalkeeper Jack Yerlett, 17, therefore still has a future at the club and has a large part to play to keep the club in the division.

Beard needs his experienced players like Aaron Day and Beveney to stand up to the plate to maintain the club’s current league status.

“We’ve had quite a frank conversation in there and the likes of Aaron and Shawn have stood up and quite rightly said it’s not good enough – and Quentin as well.

“The younger guys need to listen to these guys because they know what they’re talking about because they’ve been around.

“I think we need to get that team ethos back and we need the likes of Shawn and Aaron to maybe put an arm around a couple of them, ‘come on let’s do this tonight and put in a bit of a performance’ and think with a little bit more desire and a little bit more faith in each other, we’ll start getting results.”

The first thing that Beard requires are defenders who can actually defend as Tunbridge Wells ripped them apart in midweek.

“How do we stay up? By winning games and not conceding,” said Beard.

“I think it’s quite clear that (conceding 63 goals) gives you an idea where our weaknesses are now.  We can work on those. 

“Unfortunately the first three weeks of me being here we didn’t have training because of having midweek games. We only train once a week. We’re not like some of the other teams in this league that train twice, we don’t have that luxury at the moment.

“It’s going back to the basics of heading and kicking, putting your head where it hurts and putting your foot through stuff that’s in a 50-50 and maintaining a couple of hits.

“But I’m confident we’ll get there. I think some of the players that we’ve got in and some players will be moving on and we’re going to bring in new players.

“We’re bottom. People understand how I play, what Holmesdale are about and what we want to achieve here with the likes of Shawn Beveney coming in.

“We’ve got players who have got good Kent League experience and we’ll build on that and it will come. It’s just having the faith and the confidence in each other to make it work.”

Visit Holmesdale’s website:  www.pitchero.com/clubs/holmesdalefc

Holmesdale  v  Lordswood
Southern Counties East Football League
Saturday 5^th December 2015
Kick off 3:00pm
at 68 Oakley Road, Bromley, Kent BR2 8HQ