Danny Kedwell has left SCEFL side Hollands and Blair and returned to his former club Havant & Waterlooville – but as the former Gillingham striker has been telling KSN it’s sadly all down to Lockdown 2.0…

It was announced on Monday that Kedwell would re-join the National League South outfit and in doing so would return to playing – which is the reason for the move as he explained. “The Lockdown has come at the wrong time for everyone,” he told us.

“I run the Academy at Ebbsfleet – which takes up three to four days of my week, which takes me into when I retire from football from a business point of view and with this new Lockdown that was my other source of income and so without it I’ve had nothing else!”

“I couldn’t go and get another job just for two or three days a week given the current circumstances with everything else that’s going on and the poor people who haven’t got a job because of it!”

“Sadly, I think that that will be it for me at Blair!” he confessed. “The only reason that I left Havant in the first place was to concentrate on the Academy and commitments to my future – if I’m honest, I’ve unfinished business down there. I really wanted to do well last year and get another promotion and losing in the Play Offs to Dartford after being in front and then having a man sent off.”

“I was gutted when I didn’t play the second half and so I do have unfinished business. I had injuries last year that meant I missed the start of the season with my medial injury pre-season so I missed the first three months – it took me five weeks to get match-fit and because of the pandemic it meant that I didn’t really have a full season to go for it!”

Kedwell is the first player to bring this to the public domain but surely there must be many hundreds if not thousands in exactly the same position as there has been of course in many, many occupations in the past eight months.

Kedwell agreed that it was a part of the suspension of the grassroots game that many don’t recognise.

Explaining his move, he then paid tribute to Paul Piggott the Blair chairman saying, “I’ve been talking to Paul (Doswell – the Havant boss) since I left; I’ve got a good relationship with him – he understood why I left after the Play Offs; I had to go and sort my Academy out because of the first Lockdown because I didn’t know what was going on.”

“I’ve been talking to him all the way through really – he asked me a few times to go back, but I was going to keep my word and said no as I’d promised Piggott that I’d stay at Blair for the year. Then the pandemic hit, and I have to say that Piggy has been different class – he really has. He told me “listen, you’ve got to go and look after your family and that’s the most important thing!” and so that’s what I’ve done – unfortunately!”

“The rules and regulations that we’ve not got to follow are a nightmare,” Kedwell continued. “You really don’t know if you’re coming or going. The boys themselves are asking questions if they’re in or are they not in. They’re “just” doing their education at the moment – we can only do a PE lesson with them which is non-contact; they’re still in in their little bubbles. We can’t get out on the pitch and coach as we’d like doing normal scholarships for them, so it really is hard on them! It’s very difficult for everyone…”

Kedwell won’t be available for Havant in the FA Cup as he’s cup tied but ironically could make his second debut for the Hawks this weekend against Cup Giantkillers Oxford City in National League South – he told us, “I’m 37 now and I still feel like I’ve got two or three years left in me – I actually do feel fit! I might not look it, but I do feel fit and I’m really looking forward to it.”

“There’s still boys there from last year – there’s nine of them – and I got on brilliantly with all of them – it’s all very exciting!”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.