Tommy Osborne is impressed by the speed at which Ashford have assembled their squad.

Coach Osborne is new to the party at Homelands after joining Kevin Watson’s backroom team a fortnight ago.

When he walked through the door, he found the majority of Ashford’s summer recruitment had already been done, with Watson and assistant manager Adam Flanagan hard at work.

It leaves the Nuts & Bolts in a strong position to attack the Isthmian South East, which kicks off on August 12.

“Everyone will have their say and hopefully we can get the best out of the squad Kev and Flan have put together,” said Osborne, the former Cray Valley manager.

“Where I’ve only just joined, Kev and Flan, to be fair, have done their business quite quickly during the summer.

“The squad was pretty much there when I agreed to join. It’s difficult to do that because at Step 4, there’s quite a few clubs with hefty budgets.

“I’m not being negative when I say this but players do stall and wait and hold out to see what the best option or deal is, so it’s not easy putting a squad together early.

“Sometimes you do have to be patient and wait but Kev and Flan identified the players they wanted and managed to get them. They’ve done very well to do that.”

Osborne worked under Watson for five years at Cray Valley and played with Flanagan both at Hastings and Dartford. The trio know each other well.

“I find it easy working with Kev,” said Osborne. “He listens to others’ ideas. Some managers, it’s their way or no way but Kev is the opposite of that.

“We don’t always agree - in fact, we’ve disagreed on lots of things - but we always come to a decision.

“Working with him for five years previously, and playing with Flan for a long time, I can go in and be familiar with the management team.

“Even though me and Flan played together a while ago, we’ve still kept in touch. He’s done his own thing in management, and been very successful.

“Between the three of us, there won’t be anything we feel we can’t say to each other.”

Ashford and Cray Valley have been promotion rivals in recent seasons. Indeed, the Nuts & Bolts beat the Millers 1-0 in the play-off semi-finals two seasons ago.

Osborne has swapped clubs now but expects Isthmian South East to be as competitive as ever.

He said: “In the last four seasons, a couple of them were hit by Covid, but when I was at Cray Valley, Ashford were always a bit of a rival.

“Both clubs were trying to get promoted and whenever I’ve gone there, they’ve always had good support and I had a nice feeling for the club.

“With the new pitch being laid, and the plans for the ground, it’s a really good non-league club.

“It’s a really competitive league and I can’t see it being anything other than that again this season.

“It was a great league last season. From the second half of the season onwards, you couldn’t help but think it was going to go to the last game of the season because there were so few points between all the teams in and around the play-offs.

“There’s going to be eight to 10 teams who think they can go up, whether that’s by winning the league or via the play-offs.”