I've got a good enough budget to win promotion next season, reveals Warrilow

TONBRIDGE ANGELS boss Tommy Warrilow admits that their campaign has ended on a “sour note” - but the work to ensure that the west Kent club win promotion at the end of next season starts in earnest, writes Stephen McCartney.

Carshalton Athletic preserved their Ryman Premier League status yesterday with a 2-0 win at a sunny Colston Avenue - but Warrilow’s warriors disappointed.

Matt York scored his first goal of the season with a sixteenth minute penalty, after Angels midfielder Tommy Tyne was penalised for handball.

The closest that the Kent side came to scoring during the first half was when 37-year-old striker Micky Collins, starting his first game, struck the far post with an angled drive from just inside the penalty box, on the half-hour mark.

A Fraser Logan free-kick, which was tipped over the crossbar by Robins’ goalkeeper Aaron Howe, and headers from Carl Rook (twice) and James Donovan during the second half was all that Tonbridge mustered during a poor showing.

And when Carpenter scored a second from an acute angle, deep, deep into injury time at the end of the game, this left the former Horsham assistant fuming.

Tonbridge, however, ended their campaign in 8^th place with 63 points, behind Chelmsford City (87); Staines Town (78); AFC Wimbledon (75); AFC Hornchurch (70); Ramsgate (68); Ashford Town Middlesex (68) and Hendon (65) - and one point ahead of their Kent rivals Margate, who finished in ninth.

At the bottom, Boreham Wood (50); East Thurrock United (50); Folkestone Invicta (49) and Leyton (16) were relegated.

But Warrilow knows who he needs to bring in - and release - to ensure promotion is clinched this time next year.

“In general, I know who I want to bring to the club and on the other hand I know probably who isn’t going to stay,” Warrilow told www.kentishfootball.co.uk after yesterday’s disappointment.

“I’ve got to speak to a lot of the lads because obviously we’ve been in a position where we didn’t know what league we’d be in so I couldn’t pull them (to one side) because we could have been Conference South (a Blue Square South club next season).

“I’ll be doing that in the next week or so and looking to rebuild and bring fresh faces in as well for next season.”

The way that Tonbridge finished the season - taking away the two draws and defeat in their last three games that have cost them a place in the play-off lottery - bodes well for a promotion push next season.

“The way we finished it, people are obviously looking at us now but again you hear about budgets elsewhere, Dover and Dartford are coming up, both sides well supported,” explained Warrilow.

“It all depends on what you hear about other clubs with budgets etc but we’ll be up there.

“We’ve got a good budget here, it’s a big enough budget to get us out this league.”