Tunbridge Wells FC - Supporters
1st May 2024
End of Season reflections
So, on Saturday, we finally limped across the finish line on what has been a long and very challenging season. I was really disappointed that we couldn’t sign off with a home win, particularly as the day was dedicated to the great Ken Bromley & his fantastic family but perhaps after the month we’d had it was one game too far.
When Scott reached out to me back in July and offered me the opportunity to manage this great Club, my home town Club, I knew that everything wouldn’t be perfect. Without a pre-season together, plus the uncertainty off the pitch, it was a bit of a journey into the unknown, which has proven to have a lot more twists and turns than I’d bargained for!
Amongst all of the tribulations, I have been extremely blessed by the support afforded me by some fantastic, and often unsung heroes. In no particular order, my Management Team of Harps, Pottsy, Joffie & Rich, whom did not sign up knowing that I would be leading them, but all of them have been a massive source of camaraderie, encouragement, support & humour, which has been vital to keeping me focused. Led by Wendy & Claire, the ladies who run the bar but also do so much more, deserve a medal! Two things we never have cause to worry or complain about are the laundry & the post match food (who else gets a choice of deserts!!!), despite everything they have always made us feel special in these respects, especially considering the limited resources they are working with. Likewise, the smiling, friendly faces of Holly, Lucy, Jo & Helen always help put things back in perspective, even after a painful defeat.
Jamie & Bayley’s work with the U23’s is now getting the recognition they deserve, their openness to help with player development & compromise their own squads at times for the good of the Senior side has been massive & definitely not something I take for granted. Jamie in particular, is at the heart of so much bubbling under the surface at the Club that the casual spectator would never even see.
When we reached out for somebody to sponsor our warm up jumpers to keep out the winter cold, I never would have thought it would lead to a meeting with Dan & Katy from PK Motors. Their subsequent commitment and enthusiasm to the Club has bowled me over & made an immeasurable difference to the players. Aside from their financial support in kitting the boys out with tracksuits and jackets, they have become hardcore home & away supporters who have caught the bug which I hope will stay for a long time!
Finally, as this is a Supporter run website, let me take a moment to acknowledge some of you & the fantastic contribution you make to your Club. Firstly, Tony who’s hard work and vision has led to the creation of this site, which I know is a massive source of pride amongst you. Will for his dedication to the media; all of our social media graphics are produced by him along with our epic interviews, some of which are as long as an episode of Eastenders (questionably not as exciting!?) Mick the Mic for masterminding the end of season awards and compering so brilliantly, Charlie for running the supporters socials and always making sure The Den is looking resplendent with all of our flags on display at every game. I know that some of you have contributed to the cost of our Veo, which has been a massive benefit to us in reviewing games, I’m not sure if you want to remain anonymous, so I won’t list you here but please know we are extremely grateful. Those of you who turn up home and away, despite the weather, distance or level of optimism of a positive outcome; I salute every single one of you, truly special people who epitomize the spirit of non-league football so perfectly.
Having subsequently been rightfully (in my opinion) awarded 3 points for the abandoned Snodland game, we finish in 13th place on 49 points. Whilst nobody will be patting themselves on the back at this outcome, there have been some smaller “wins” across the last 8 months, which I’ll take a moment to reflect upon now.
There is an Indian proverb that states “blessed is he who plants trees under whose shade he will never sit”. For me, this is the remit we have and will continue to work to as we make decisions on how best to serve the Club, and leave a legacy that outlives our time here. With this in mind, we are incredibly proud to have been able to offer genuine opportunity to our younger players this season. At a quick count, I can see over 60 appearances by members of our U23 team in a First Team shirt, in addition we have included others as unused subs in the matchday squad to give them a taste of senior football, as well as organising various loan moves for those we felt would benefit from the experience. In total we gave 8 players their step 5 debuts!
On a lighter note, we completed the double over Rusthall, something which hopefully brought some joy to the terraces and restored local bragging rights.
We kept 14 clean sheets, including the 1-0 home win to champions Deal Town, Whitstable & Snodland (twice) as well as Glebe. These results along with credible draws away to Faversham & Lydd plus at home to Bearsted, showed that on our day we could be a match for anyone.
The players have been superb, all things considered, and I genuinely feel that we have made significant progress in terms of assembling a good group and playing with an identity. Whilst we know there is a still a lot of hard work to be done, I feel like we saw a taste of how we want to play during the 5 game unbeaten run from Snodland to Sutton across March/April, not just because of the results but for the football we played along the way. Before that the pitch had meant we couldn’t get a consistent run of games, and after the crazy backlog caught up with us!
Hopefully by the time we next see each other, there will be significant developments on the Clubhouse rebuild, as well as facility refurbishments at The Den.
We have already begun plotting our pre-season to ensure we come back and represent the badge to the best of our abilities, we look forward to catching up then! Over and out for now.
Ivesy
15th March 2024
Hello everyone, it’s been a little while since I have been in touch, so just checking in to give you an update on where we’re up to with all things first team related. I’ve lost track of the time I wrote the last Boss’ notes - it’s been some time and the amount of postponements we’ve had of late means we kind of lost our bearings a little bit with the schedule, so I’d like to talk a bit about our most recent home game on Saturday as we welcomed Lordswood to the Den. As I mentioned in my interview, I personally felt that 3-2 gave a closer picture than the game actually was. Lordswood scored two goals which they deserved, but in terms of possession and territory, I thought we were quite dominant and probably should have added to the three goals that we scored, but either way it was pleasing to record the win after a couple of defeats. At the time we were hoping that would give us momentum to take on Faversham on Tuesday just gone, but as it was, despite the supporter’s valiant efforts with the covers, the pitch wasn’t playable, but to be fair we did receive a lot of rain and that just seems to be the pattern that is catching us at the moment. It does meant at some point we’re going to have a really busy run of games and the squad are going to be needed in their full capacity, including the extension of the U23’s who are going really well themselves and also have games to catch up on. Some of their squad are training with the first team, as they have most of the season and Ned Lewis was the latest example, who after a couple of brief substitute appearances, we gave a full debut to on Saturday, during which he was doing really well until a head injury forced him out of the game. From my perspective, with Billy Lewins serving his suspension, we are now almost at 100% availability. Mo Alaka is back in training as is Jack Gallagher who has been injured for a couple of weeks. I’m really pleased to share, even though it’s early days, Johnny Phillips is joining us for training again so I’m hopeful that might mean he’ll be back on the pitch before the end of the season. Harry Hudson and Ned Lewis are on holiday for this coming Saturday and are likely to be the only two players that are unavailable for the trip to Whitstable, which is one we’re really looking forward to, playing on a 3G surface so there’s no doubt about the game going ahead. We have played Whitstable twice this season, we won the first game quite comfortably but they turned us over 4-2 in the cup when we did have a bit of a shuffled side. I saw that they lost to Fisher on Saturday so there’s absolutely no doubt they’ll be up for the game on Saturday as they try to get back to winning ways, so we’re expecting and prepared for a challenge. We then go into a tough run, playing Erith Town away on Tuesday, Snodland away on Saturday, Bearsted at home the following Tuesday and then Lydd away which will challenge us in all shapes and forms but we’re looking forward to it. This is why we get involved in football, to play in good games like these so let’s see what we can deliver. I have already heard there’s quite a few supporters planning to travel to Whitstable so I’m really looking forward to seeing you all. As you know, the online club shop is now up and running so you’re able to purchase some new merchandise if that interests you. However you choose to support us, it is always much appreciated and fantastic. Hopefully we get a dry few weeks meaning we can really attack April when the majority of games are going to be at the Den, giving us the opportunity to finish the season strongly in front of our home support. Thanks for all the support as always, I look forward to seeing you all at the Oysters on Saturday – over and out for now.
Ivesy.
8th February 2024
Good evening everyone, it’s been a little while since I last checked in, so I thought this evening, after us welcoming VCD to the Den was as good a time as any for an update from me and the team. There’s been two games (before VCD) since I last spoke to you guys and we set ourselves a target of at least 3 points from those two games, which unfortunately we were unable to deliver, albeit we got very close to securing the win in the first game against Lydd Town FC. On the whole I thought we performed well, against a tough and aggressive opponent, but ultimately our naivety and inability to man manage the final stages of the game allowed Lydd to get out of the Den with a point, which was very frustrating. Those of you that attended will know that we started the game really well, we had an intent and good attacking tempo that led to their skipper getting sent off quite early when he took Trevor out for the second time when he got in behind their defence. Trevor then scored from Harry’s cross, to give us a deserved lead at half time and if I’m honest, the turning point is probably the saved penalty and then the double whammy of them getting a penalty which they scored two minutes later. That could have really seen the game swing away from us, but we regrouped, we went back in front, we had another good penalty shout turned down before Matty put his freekick in the top corner and then after they went down to nine men, we should have really seen the game out and looked after the ball, but we were looking for killer third, which wasn’t an instruction we gave the boys, I think it was just a kind of instinct they had because they sensed Lydd were there for the taking and whilst in a way, a part of me wants to applaud the enthusiasm to score a few more goals, you ultimately have to hold your hands up and acknowledge there’s a naivety when in stoppage time you’re taking a short corner and having a run and shot rather than keeping it in the corner and we paid a harsh penalty for that, as they broke very quickly and then saw a deflected cross concede a goal to nick a point which they celebrated, as well they should, like they got out of jail.
I do understand that from those of you who have watched us regularly this season, that this has been a too familiar scene when we think of some of the late goals we’ve conceded and from my perspective, off the back of the derby and the impressive point at Faversham, three points would have really set us up for the away game at Deal. But you don’t get any freebies in life and when you make mistakes you always run the risk of getting punished, so fair play to Lydd who were packed full of experienced players, a very ambitious club and I wish them well and I think they will have realised on the way home that they escaped very luckily with anything. Moving on to the Deal game, I don’t think any club has done particularly well at Deal this season. In the case of Tunbridge Wells, I can remember it being a very hard away game last season as well. We knew it was going to be ‘backs against the wall’, to a point. We had done as much research on them as we could. A lot of the information we received was that their threat came from wide areas, which actually we dealt with very well over the course of the ninety minutes. As it was, our undoing was in dead-ball situations where they overpowered us and I have to be brutally honest and say its probably the first time all season where we never really looked like getting anything from a game but we do have to respect the fact that they are absolutely flying right now in both the league and the FA Vase and as much as I would have liked to have run them a little closer, I thought we finished the game well. Shieldsy clipped the post when he came on. Brad had a rather ambitious lob shot go just over the crossbar. But if we’re honest, their three corners un-did us and we have to learn from that. Maybe it’s something my management team and I should have spotted from the videos that we’ve watched, although they didn’t actually score from a corner in the videos that I saw and you can’t second guess anything, sometimes you just have to ask the players if something happens once, can they fix it so it doesn’t happen again. This is all very much a learning curve for us, but we have to learn quickly. The next few games are all at home and we thoroughly expect to start picking up points. We know that’s expected of us and we know that our current league position is not one we’re proud of and not one that you guys find acceptable. It has been tough, there are certain circumstances and issues that we’re working with that aren’t ideal but there will never be excuses made. We are here to perform and win games of football and if we’re not doing that, we need to look in the mirror and we need to be held accountable. Those of you that genuinely come and support us, game in and game out, I will always make myself available to you guys - if you ever want to speak to me at a game, after a game, in-between games or in a bar, you know I’ll make myself available. I tend to keep away from social media at the moment because there are always people with ulterior motives, stone throwers, mud slingers and it’s not necessarily appropriate to respond on social media. I’m also aware that if I’m silent, a lie goes unanswered and it can be spoken as if it’s the truth but as I say, those of you that follow us through thick and thin, those of you that I’ve had conversations and meetings with, I think you know what we’re trying to achieve and where we’re trying to go and to be honest, its because of you guys that we put in so much time and energy. Some positive news, I’m delighted that we’ve managed to secure a new chief sponsor, not only for the rest of this season but for all of next season, the players have waited so patiently for tracksuits and training equipment and that’s now all on order thanks to the generosity of PK Motors. They’re also going to become our main shirt sponsor, both home and away which is a tremendous sign of commitment to local football and whilst I’m primarily here to win matches of football, I’m very proud that I’ve been able to be involved in engineering this partnership which hopefully will stand this club in good stead for years to come. As I said earlier, we’ve got a lot of home games coming up and the reason that I, my management team and all the boys hold this club in such high regard is because our support truly is like no other. We need you now! I appreciate you need us to step up and I assure you we’re doing absolutely everything we can to fulfil our part of the bargain and I really look forward to seeing you on Saturday and in the coming weeks. Up the Wells. – over and out for now.
Ivesy.
26th January 2024
Hello everyone, I hope you’re all well.
It seems like an eternity since we last played in the league. The away point at Faversham was the last outing for us. We have subsequently had two fixtures called off for pitch related issues, which whilst it’s frustrating, I don’t think anybody can really grumble too much about last week’s frozen pitch, which I inspected myself and the pitch was like concrete, as were most other pitches in the area judging by other postponements that I saw. Rather than just sit around doing nothing, we took the opportunity to train well. It’s slightly frustrating that with the recent weather, we now find ourselves with a free Saturday, so we’re going to train again on Saturday morning, to prepare the boys the best we can for the visit of Lydd Town FC to the Den on Tuesday evening.
The general spirit in the camp is good, we’ve got a few of the boys now coming back to full fitness – Billy Lewins should hopefully be able to play some part on Tuesday and Jack Walder is back in and around training, although he is a bit behind Billy in terms of full recovery and until he actually steps back onto the pitch. I can see the whole squad now realistically not being too far off being at full strength, which is going to be really important because we have quite a congested number of fixtures coming down the track to make up for all these postponements. Since the draw at Faversham, we have played against Whyteleafe AFC in the cup which disappointingly we lost 2-1. Whyteleafe AFC are a good side, we knew that before we went into the game, they have got some individual quality that if they can get on the ball in dangerous areas, they’re more than capable of hurting you. Having watched the game back, I would say we more than played our part in it – territorially, possession wise I felt we were quite good considering it was a difficult surface to play on with the frost. Credit where credit is due, we just couldn’t score when we had our moments in the first half, particularly. It was too little, too late when Regan scored in the 90th minute, but we’ve just got to put that behind us now because it would have been great to push on and try to get a cup final appearance, but it wasn’t to be. We’ve now got 19 league games to concentrate on and finish as strong as we possibly can and build momentum into the Summer. Apart from that, there’s no real news to speak about in terms of new signings, we have got one player training with us but until anything is officially agreed I don’t want to speak about that just yet. It’s mainly because the new players that have come into the group since Christmas have now had a chance to settle in and some of the injured players to get their rehabilitation right and as and when we finally get back out onto the pitch, which will hopefully be Tuesday, we should be in a relatively good place, meaning competition for places is going to be high across the coming month. Lydd Town FC will be a tough opponent. I have watched them play and with their games in hand, they’re still looking to be in the mix for promotion / playoffs. They have recently changed their manager, which thinking about it, Scott Porter will have his first game this Saturday so his visit to the Den will be only his second game. I pass on my congratulations to him on securing the job, they have got some very good players and they seem like they’re still reinforcing their squad, so Lydd pose a tough challenge to us but one we’re looking forward to. We then go from that into the ‘fans favourite’, Deal away trip which is one of our longer away trips but again, we look forward to it. Once again, Deal are in excellent form and a serious title contender so we will be tested over these next few games and it’ll be interesting to see how we stack up. We then go into a good run of home games where I would love to see as many of you as possible attending to support the boys and hopefully we can start to pick up the points that will allow us to find the league position that, as a group, I believe we deserve to be in. I realise you don’t get anything easily and we have to keep working hard and trying our best in training to cover as many angles and scenarios as possible, to put ourselves in as best place as we can. I look forward to seeing you all at the Den soon. Someone told me a statistic recently that we’ve only played one home game since October and if that is accurate, it’s crazy. The positive is that at some point we’re going to have a big run of home games soon which will hopefully mean we’ll see a lot of you guys and get some momentum going. Have a great weekend, unfortunately football free for Tunbridge Wells but all being well, come Tuesday, we’ll see each other and we’ll do our best to put on a good performance for you all – over and out for now.
Ivesy.
15th January 2024
Good evening everyone and welcome to the first edition of The Boss’ notes.
On the whole it’s been a positive start to the year, we followed up a convincing derby win with a valuable point away to Faversham, which I feel we were more than good for, based on the balance of 90 minutes. It was very disappointing not to play on Saturday when we were due to welcome VCD to ‘The Den’, the pitch got the better of us which was frustrating but contrary to social media, it wasn’t frost / frozen, it was water logged at the top left-hand corner, so I understand. It certainly wasn’t a club decision, we were desperate to play the game, we had a full compliment available and we were really confident we could continue our good form, momentum and morale that comes from picking up points and good performances and really give a good account of ourselves against a team that are in the mix with ourselves in the bottom half of the table. As it was, the match referee decided there was an area of the pitch that he wasn’t comfortable with and we just had to abide by his decision as frustrating as that may be. As it is now, we turn our attention to tomorrow evening, we’re due to play Whyteleafe in the SCEFL Challenge Cup. Whyteleafe are top and well-clear of the division below, we’re most definitely not taking them for granted in any shape or form, they’ve got some very good players that have played at step 4 and even step 3 very recently, so we know we’re going to have to be on our game and whilst we know the league is our main focus, it would be great for everyone connected with the club if we could keep going in this competition and have the potential of bringing a good day out and maybe some silverware to the club – if nothing else, the fans and everyone connected to the club deserves some success.
On the pitch, you’ll notice there’s some new faces on the pitch recently. Shieldsy who made his debut against Rusthall has already become a firm favourite with the fans, Morgan Vale who has joined from Uckfield, you’ve seen a glimpse of him against Faversham, we also have the return of Matty Astle who joins us back from Littlehampton Town FC, which is massive for me. Also, Nico Cotton joins us from Canterbury, another good, experienced player. Both of those players, in fact, all of those players fit the profile of type of signing we’re looking for now as we’re starting to build not only for the end of this season but as we start to build for next season as well, they have - energy, legs, dedication, I felt the squad needed a little bit of a spruce up and I’m really pleased that those boys have come in and they’ve already had a really positive impact on the environment. In addition, Billy Lewins, back training with us on Thursday which was massive, he got through the session and is ‘chomping at the bit’ to get back out on the pitch. It might be another 7-10 days but providing he doesn’t have any set-backs, which I dearly hope he doesn’t, we could see him in the Royal red soon which will be massive and Walds (Jack Walder) is really going at his rehab like a beast to get back from this ankle injury and again he’s determined to get back from this ankle injury sooner rather than later and again I genuinely believe as soon as we get a full squad available, we’ll be competitive against any team we come up against and that’s the aim as we go into a really important part of the season. I appreciate all you guys and girls sticking with us, the support has been fantastic recently, particularly during some of the away days. Obviously, it’s tough without the clubhouse at ‘The Den’, but we’ve got a lot of home games coming up and you guys can really make the difference for us. I appreciate we’ve got to put in performances to get you guys going but likewise, your performances can help get us going, so hopefully together we can finish strong and bring some optimism back to the place. As always, thanks for your support, I’ll be checking in and providing updates here regularly and making use of this fantastic website that the supporters have worked really hard to put together, I’ve read some of the supporter’s stories and it’s fantastic to know that you’re connected to a club that means so much to people and with so much history and I just want to play my part in hopefully bringing some joy and happiness to you guys – over and out for now.
Ivesy.
