COMINGS AND GOINGS
Posted by Brian Spurrell on 8 February 2020
COMINGS AND GOINGS
It’s been a fortnight of ins and outs for the Deres in the wake of manager Owen Jones’ resignation.
Owen resigned following a meeting with the club directors and president before the Hollands and Blair match on 25 February, and unsurprisingly his son and club captain George Jones decided to depart with him. We have also lost Chan Quan (who has signed for FC Elmstead), Kameiko Pope-Campbell (Holmesdale), Reece Barrett and Dan Teeley (tbc). All six have given great service to the Deres in an exciting period when we got back out of the SCEFL second division and won two trophies on the way, and we wish them all well for the future.
However assistant manager Stuart Webb has stepped in as caretaker manager, with Mark Cooke (father of Bailey) and Taylor Couldry as his team on the bench. We thank them and wish them the very best of luck for the coming weeks. They quickly signed Archie Daniels, Chris Alhassan and Max Gayle on dual registration with Cray Wanderers, and the latter two made promising debuts as second-half substitutes against Lordswood last week. Since then they have been joined by goalkeeper Jackson Vose, James Przeslawski (also from Cray), Tate Rayner (Danson Sports), Victor Aiyelabola (Herne Bay), Archie Deal and George Martin. It’ll be a new-look team that lines up at K Sports today.
We have received over 30 applications for the manager’s post, although for the time being our focus is on recruiting new blood on the board. The first name to join is James Lyons, who played for Deres in Micky Collins’ first match as manager in 2010 and made 33 appearances that season. With luck we will soon have some stability after the upheavals of the past week or two. Keep the faith!
