Top six would be nice and a final, says Fleet Leisure boss Lee Richmond

FLEET LEISURE manager Lee Richmond says a top six finish and to reach a cup final would be a successful first season in the Kent Invicta League.



The club pay £5,000 a season in rent to play at Rochester United’s Rede Court Road ground and will be looking to extend their groundsharing deal when their three-year deal expires at the end of next season.

Fleet Leisure are in ninth-place in their inaugural Kent Invicta League campaign with 8 wins, 4 draws and 8 defeats from their 20 league games.

They have one foot in the Pain & Glory Sports Kent Invicta League Challenge Trophy Final after beating Lewisham Borough 4-3 in the first leg on Wednesday night – and the second leg takes place next Wednesday.

But before that, Richmond takes his side to play whipping boys Crockenhill in the league tomorrow.

The Crocks have won only one of their 22 league games this season and have leaked 131 league goals in a season to forget.

“They’ve actually picked up, they’ve actually won a game since we’ve last played them,” said Richmond.

“It all depends what team they put out and things like that.  There the sort of games where the mind-set has already been set when you go up there because they’ve won only one game you have to get the players going just to get them going.

“We’ve beat them 7-0 and 7-1 in this Cup so we’ve got Lewisham Borough twice, Crockenhill twice, all the teams under us and Lydd’s the only one in the top two and they could be going for the title against us so it will be interesting to see how much we’ve progressed against the top sides.”

Reflecting on the club’s first season at this level, Richmond said: “We’ve been satisfied. It’s just a shame we didn’t play for ten weeks after Christmas because we’ve got the backlog now. 

“We’ve enjoyed it.  Hopefully we can put a few things right for next year and hopefully push a bit more.”

Fleet Leisure are six points adrift of sixth-placed Rusthall in the table and Richmond wants to catch up with the Jockey Farm outfit in their remaining eight league games.

He said: “Top six would be nice and a final.  That would be a good season. The teams that we’ve got are underneath us apart from the two games against Lydd so if we can get enough points to get top six that would be nice in our first season.”

Fleet Leisure played some attractive football against Lewisham Borough and Richmond says his players have adapted well to life in their new surroundings.

“When you win leagues and cups it’s all about performing,” said Richmond. 

“When we go and expect to play football all the time sometimes you can’t so you have to dig in and grind out results.  This is what we’ve learnt this year. Hopefully we can take it on board for next year although this season’s not over. We still have to try to get in the final.”

When asked what the difference is between the Kent Invicta League and the top flight of the Haart of Kent County League, Richmond replied: “Teams are more consistent, more experienced players and they’ve got a bit of nous.

“We lost 2-0 to Hollands & Blair and we totally outplayed them but they grounded out a result. I spoke to their manager afterwards and he said you play good football but he said it’s about winning and that sort of stuck with me.

“It doesn’t matter how you play, it’s about results. It’s alright playing good football but when it comes to winter you need players to grind it out.”

Richmond threatened to dust his own boots off to play a part in the club’s gruelling end-of-season fixture back-log.

The Kent Invicta League season has only 28 league games due to only having 15 sides, but the country’s wettest winter in 250 years has played havoc with fixture lists and the club are now paying the price.

“I’m dusting my boots off,” joked Richmond.

“We’ve got so many signed on.  We’ve got a lot of youngsters signed on who can fill in.”

Crockenhill  v  Fleet Leisure
Kent Invicta League
Saturday 12^th April 2014
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Wested Meadow, Eynsford Road, Crockenhill, Kent BR8 8EJ