FORMER Deal, Ashford and |Herne Bay boss Tommy Sampson is back in football management with Ryman League Premier Division side Boreham Wood. The 47-year-old from Maidstone has sealed the deal with Boreham Wood chairman Danny Hunter and takes charge for the first time at Croydon on Saturday.

Sampson was first interviewed for the Boreham Wood job during the summer, but on that occasion just lost out to former Nottingham Forest youth team boss Jimmy Gilligan.

Gilligan, who was at the City Ground at the same time David Platt was first team boss, quit Boreham Wood a fortnight ago. It had been his first non-league post. Sampson, whose last job was at Ashford, explained: "After Jimmy Gilligan walked out Danny Hunter phoned me to see if I was still interested in the job and I said yes, very much so. I have made no secret of the fact that I want to manage in the Nationwide Conference and to do that I need to manage at a better level. This job gives me the opportunity to do that because here I've got everything I need to start with, a half-decent team, excellent facilities which are already up to Conference standard and an ambitious chairman."

Sampson was manager at Deal when they won the FA Carlsberg Vase. He quit Ashford in March. Since then he has been worked as a scout for a number of clubs including Kingstonian, Folkestone Invicta, Maidstone United and Braintree. He has also kept his hand in by doing some radio work but admits he is delighted to be back in management.

"Football has been a large part of my life ever since I walked through the doors at Millwall as a 15-year-old but this is the first season I've started without a club and it has been difficult. I've already seen a lot of Ryman Premier Division games this season and I played at that level for six years albeit a little while ago, so I know what to expect."Õ