Smells like teen spirit at Chatham - EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Tuesday 10th April 2007

Chatham Town manager Phil Miles heaped praise on his young players for virtually securing their Ryman League status over the Easter weekend, writes Stephen McCartney.

On Saturday, they moved five points clear of the Division One South drop zone, with a 1-0 win over fellow strugglers Godalming Town at Maidstone Road.

Midfielder James Lyons, 20, scored his third – and most crucial – goal of the season to settle a tense game.

Then, two days later, they pulled off their third shock result of the season when they dented Dartford’s play-off hopes, winning 3-1 at Princes Park.

Looking at the Chatham side only John Whitehouse, Tom Binks, Danny Larkin and Steve Best have the experience with the remainder of the squad made up with hungry youngsters.

And with the club’s reserve side sitting comfortably at the top of the Kent League Second Division, Miles believes more kids will be given the opportunity to progress into his first team squad.

“Our reserves are top and we’ve got a really little reserve set-up,” he said EXCLUSIVELY to www.kentishfootball.co.uk.

“To be fair to Kevin Phillips, the reserve team manager, I’ve been taking five or six of his best players and they’re still top and winning games.

“We’ve got a fantastic youth team system, got some good young under 18’s and also got a couple of the under 16’s playing for the reserves as well so the conveyor belt looks good.

“It’s just a matter of keeping them, keeping the right ones and not losing them and that’s difficult because financially we can’t compete with the others but what we can give them are the games and the experience.”

Miles has been forced to throw in many in-experienced players during this, their first, campaign in the Ryman League.

“In one way, playing them this year has given them all the experience,” he said.

“There’s no substitute than playing in this league and they’ve been thrown in at the deep end and most of them have done really well but it’s a big step from our reserves to this standard but most of them have done well.”

Godalming Town are the side that’s destined for a return back into the Combined Counties League following their Easter defeats to Chats and Fleet Town.

The Surrey outfit finish their campaign with games against Kingstonian (away), Tooting & Mitcham United (away) and at home to Hastings United on the last day of the season and will be lucky to pick up three points from those good sides.

Although Chatham are eight points clear of the drop zone, they can go into their last three games with the pressure lifted off them.

Leatherhead visit Maidstone Road on Saturday before they travel to Horsham YMCA (21^st April) before welcoming Molesey to Maidstone Road on the last day of the season.

Miles added: “If you play these top teams sometimes they take you a little bit too lightly and there’s still points to be won.

“We’ll try to get as many points as we can and finish as high as we can and then we can build for next year,” said Miles, whose side have climbed up to 17^th place in the table following their six points over the holiday period.

Visit Chatham Town’s website: www.chathamtownfc.net