The new season starts this weekend and Chipie Sian’s Punjab United side have been handed arguably the toughest possible opening day fixture – away to Whitstable Town, but that doesn’t phase the Punjab boss.
Punjab United were one of the success stories of the SCEFL Premier Division last season reaching the Play Offs for the very first time and coming agonisingly close to promotion to the Isthmian League.
This weekend they face a Whitstable Town side who will be playing their first competitive game since beating AFC Whyteleafe to lift the FA Vase back in May.
But the manager can’t wait, and he’s been talking to KSN this week. “Getting to the Play Offs last year, we really are hungry for more,” he told us. “We tasted it, and we want to get back there, and we have unfinished business!”
“There was a little bit of controversy as there always in in football, but we have to swallow that, and I think we are now ready to go again. I think the boys are ready to make amends!”
“The progress the Club has made in the last few years has been great. I think on and off the pitch, we’re building and are getting there slowly – it was always a plan of mine to take our time.”
“We were never going to go in there, and I know that we got back-to-back promotions in our first seasons in Kent, but we always knew SCEFL would be very difficult as there are some very good sides with very big budgets that you’re playing with.”
“Everything takes time and I needed people I could bring in and work with and that’s taken me two or three years to bring in.”
“Now I think everyone has seen the success of that – we have a great bunch of lads; management team and we are all working together to go one way – which is great. I look back now to when I didn’t have an assistant manager or anything like that and it was tough.”
“SCEFL is a massive League now – the budgets and the history of some Clubs is amazing, and it goes all the way down. I don’t think that we’ll be under any pressure – I think it’s had a lot to do with people under estimating Punjab in previous years and I think last year showed how close we were at the end and we were there on merit as we proved we were good enough.”
“I think that with the players that we have kept in the base of the side and bringing in some experience we are ready to go again.”
“Everyone else has been doing the same I know, it’s going to be tough and in the first game of the season we’re going to face the Vase winners who will be the favourites to win the league.”
“And it’s all my “fault” as we were on the coach going to Birmingham for a friendly on the day the fixtures came out and the boys were talking about it – “who are we going to get?” the boys asked me. And I said… Whitstable, and oh my god did I get it on the coach coming home!”
“It’s not the best start we could have got, but we’ve finished pre-season now – we have no fear of any team in the division! We’ll go out and play our way and if we get it right on our day, we can beat anyone!”
Everyone at KSN would like to send best wishes to former Ebbsfleet skipper Paul Lorraine – who is now with Chipie at Punjab after playing for the Club – and his family following son’s Pierce recent accident and wish him well for a full and swift recovery.
A GoFundMe appeal has been set up to support the family through this tough time, with any donations can be made at the below link…
https://x.com/pufc_gravesend/status/1947938121653367114?s=48&t=xARQuB3vYySeRFLfjrThpQ