Herne Bay travel to bottom side East Grinstead Town in the Isthmian South East this weekend with boss Liam Friend looking for maximum points to keep the Bay within touching distance of the divisions play-off places.
After last weekend’s 1-1 draw with Sittingbourne, the Bay find themselves eighth in the table just four points behind the Brickies who currently occupy the last play-off berth.
KSN caught up with Friend this week and he admitted that he was happy to get a point at the weekend. He said, “I think if you had offered it to me before the game, I would have taken it; at half time when we were one up, I wouldn’t have taken it as I thought we were really, really good first half and were the best team, but at the end definitely happy with a point as Sittingbourne came right into the game towards the end and probably had the better chances as the game went on. So probably after all that a point was fair to both sides.”
Friend is just about to “enjoy” his first festive season in charge at the Crest Stadium and when asked if he was enjoying his time in the hot seat, he said, “Yes and no! I am enjoying parts of it, not so other parts of it! When my players are playing well and doing good things, then I really enjoy it, but when they make basic errors or things that we have discussed and talked about then not so much!
“Of course I am enjoying it really as we are trying to build something – we are doing OK, we are ticking along nicely and we have to start turning the home draws that we have had recently into wins, but it’s not that easy as there are good teams who come here trying to get the points as well. We have to keep working, keep improving and hopefully it will stand in good stead.”
“I have spoken with a lot of the managers who I played for since I took over and apologised to them saying I don’t know how they did it etc. I played under a lot of good managers and a lot of good blokes as well – you appreciate it more once you get into the job yourself and I saw the twinkle in your eye when you asked me the question, and I do understand it!” Friend said with a huge grin on his face.
“We have a whole new team this season, so I have to be happy with where we are in the League. In football you should never be too negative about the bad things and never to over the top about the good things. We’ve done OK so far – maybe a B or a B plus something like that at the moment – some of the good things are good and some of the bad things no happy with… Football’s not an exact science – it’s never perfect so now we have to try and push things on.”