New Hythe Town boss Steve Watt is relishing his new look side taking to the field this weekend as Haywards Heath Town pay another visit to the Kent coast.
Last week they headed to Thanet – where they drew with Ramsgate in the Trophy before winning the midweek replay – and so will head to Shepway this weekend full of confidence and looking to build on their good start to the BetVictor South East campaign.
As he explained the reasoning and the events that led him succeeding Sam Denly as Hythe boss, Watt told us, “I was out of football nearly a year to the day when I took the Hythe job. It felt like a long year and when the opportunity came along, I already knew a few of the boys at the club.
“I’ve always known Hythe as a good well run club, so it was as much of me ticking their box as it was vice-versa as well. Once I sat down with the board, I got the sense that there could be something special – it’s been a juggling act in the first few weeks; freeing up money in the squad; it’s been a bit manic but hopefully things will settle down now we’ve made the changes we’ve made. I think you can see from the outside that we’ve completely rebuilt the squad.”
For Watt and his new Hythe squad it’s a question of getting on with the job of improving their lowly League position. 17th at kick off, “I said when I came in that I thought the club needed new blood in and over the last few weeks we’ve been making adjustments bit by bit putting things in place to bring the players in and delighted this week to bring in initially it was going to be two players and then Alex Flisher became available out of the blue and the good news for us was that he wanted to come to Hythe!”
Another of Watt’s signings this week was former Dartford boss Jamie Coyle – but as a player! Watt explained, “I’ve known Jamie for a while and always kept in touch with him when he was at Welling and then at Dartford, and we worked very well together at Maidstone and when I came in I took stock of things defensively – we needed a leader and an organiser back there and what happened to Jamie at Dartford when he was let go.
“I made a phone call tongue-in-cheek really to ask if he fancied putting his boots back on – he’s always looked after himself, he’s incredibly fit and I knew he was going to be in good shape and its was just a question whether he wanted to get back into football quickly with a combination of coming to work for myself and the people that I have around me at the Club so that he could come in and enjoy his football again and not have to work about picking teams etc.
“I’m delighted that his experience will be able to be shared amongst the younger players who we’ve got in the squad which I hope will bring them on leaps and bounds and give them a voice on the pitch as well.
“He knows what I want and during game he’ll know what changes I’ll want to make in the game – its something that I tried to do for Jamie at Maidstone and I hope he’ll be able to do that for me here!”
“Looking at players on the pitch this weekend it will look more like my team than it has done so far. I think this week we’ll have six or seven players who I’ve brought in in the starting line-up.
“We’ve still not had time to work with the squad 11v11 yet – its only been short sharp sessions, but once things begin to start down a bit after a ridiculously busy October we’ll be able to catch up with things on a football pitch that really should have been done preseason – fitness work, you get your shape work done; your set-pieces and all that done.
“We haven’t had a chance to do that yet as the main thing was getting players in the building and players out and we’ve been able to do that which puts us in a good position going forward.”
Watt is fully aware of what faces his side on Saturday. “They’re a team who have been together a few years,” he admitted, “they’re always teams who are successful those who have been together for a while – they’ve had a good result this week versus Ramsgate in the Trophy which is good for them, a team which seems to be in a good run of form.
“I’m hoping that the players who I’ve brought in will give us a new lease of life and that we can build on the good result that we had at Herne Bay a couple of weeks ago.
“We’ve had a few players with a few knocks since we last played and we’ve been able to rest them and nurse through which is good and means that we’ll go into Saturday with a fully fit squad that has been rested and ready to go!”