No stone will be left unturned, says Holmesdale coach Ross Mitchell

HOLMESDALE coach Ross Mitchell says pre-season results are important as his players prepare for the big kick-off in eleven days’ time, writes Stephen McCartney.


The Bromley outfit stretched their unbeaten pre-season run to four games following last night’s 2-0 win over neighbours Cray Wanderers in their first outing at Oakley Road this season.

Two goals in a devastating 109 seconds from new front pairing, Tunde Aderonmu and Bankole Koroma, just before half-time sealed the victory over their Ryman Premier League neighbours from down the road.

Holmesdale began their pre-season  campaign with a 2-0 defeat to Warlingham, but defeated Bly Spartans and Dulwich Hamlet and shared eight goals in a draw to Lingfield at the weekend.

They welcome newly promoted Leatherhead (Ryman Premier League) to Oakley Road on Saturday, before travelling to play Tony Beckingham’s East Grinstead next Wednesday, before kicking off their Kent League campaign at home to Sevenoaks Town on 13 August.

“We’ve got a tough game Saturday now and that will be just as hard as tonight’s game,” Mitchell said last night.

“Leatherhead Saturday and then we play my mate Tony’s side at East Grinstead, both of which will be very hard games and both of which we’re looking forward to playing.”

All of last night’s squad put pen to paper to sign for Holmesdale and hopes are high for a much better league campaign this time out in their fifth season at this level, having finished third from bottom last season.

Mitchell said: “Our squad’s not finalised yet, it’s starting to take shape now and we had a good amount turn up to pre-season.   We had to take the opportunity to take a look at them and we kept the ones we think will add some quality.”

When asked what the club’s aspirations are, Mitchell joked that manager Gary Davies has increased the stakes.

He said: “Gary expects us to win the League this year and win the FA Cup with no money!

“In all seriousness, as I’ve said before, our objectives every season is to be as competitive as we can, for the players’ to enjoy their football and if we can nick a few Cup results and if we can do well in the league, no team liked playing us last year.  I know that for a fact!

“We were everyone’s underdog.  Every team who played us didn’t look forward to playing us.  We took points off the top four in every game, so we’ll go into the season as good as we can be.  No stone will be left unturned.”

A crowd of 70 watched the visit of Ian Jenkins’ side – proof that the club will attract larger crowds to Oakley Road if they played on Monday night’s, especially as Bromley and Cray Wanderers play on Tuesday night’s as well.

Mitchell, who is also the club’s secretary, said: “Cray are local, that was one of the attractions to getting them but thank you to Ian Jenkins for playing us tonight.  It was good to have a good crowd.  We’re trying to attract more people to the club and hopefully that happens. We’ll wait and see.”

He added: “Tuesday night is our preferred game.  We’ve told that to the league but we can be a bit more flexible on that but Monday would be ideal but due to planning and stuff like that technically we should be playing on Tuesday’s.”

Sevenoaks Town boss, Darren Anslow, whose side play Otford United in their first home game at Greatness Park on Wednesday, was watching Holmesdale last night, doing some homework ahead of the opening day derby clash.

Mitchell added: “They’re  a side who we played last year, totally different this year because they’ve got a new manager in and now with a new set of players there, but we’ll get Saturday and we’ll get East Grinstead out of the way and then we’ll strongly focus on the following Saturday game and we’ll look forward to it.”

Meanwhile, Holmesdale officials confirmed last night that they have allowed tenants Greenwich Borough to use Oakley Road free-of-charge when they also play Leatherhead next Tuesday (7:30pm).

Visit Holmesdale’s website: www.holmesdalefc.co.uk  

Holmesdale  v  Leatherhead
Pre-Season Friendly
Saturday 6^th August 2011
Kick Off 3:00pm
at 68 Oakley Road, Bromley, Kent BR2 8HQ