Steve King has been confirmed as the new manager of Deal Town.

King has been handed the reins following Derek Hares’ retirement just over a week ago.

As the long-time assistant to Hares, he’s the natural successor at the Charles Ground as Deal look to follow up last season’s fourth-placed finish in Southern Counties East.

“I’ve worked closely with Del over seven years, five years just the two of us, really, and I’m really pleased to step up into the position,” said King.

“It’s been work in progress over the years, there aren’t going to be big changes in the way we approach stuff.

“Del decided to retire, he’d been doing it a long time, and it’s been a pretty natural succession for me to step up.

“I know Del had been weighing things up - we’d had some conversations over the summer.

“It’s disappointing to lose him, because he’s been such a good servant over a long time, but he decided it was a good time to take a step back.”

King, who will be assisted by Dean Hill, regularly drew praise from former boss Hares.

It was very much a case of sharing responsibilities and King always appeared to be the heir apparent.

“We were sharing a lot of the workload,” said the new boss.

“In terms of work on the training ground, I’ve taken the lead on that.

“I’ve used Del’s experience, and that’s been good, but in terms of hands-on stuff, I’ve done a fair amount of that over the past couple of years.

“A lot of players I’ve worked with previously I’ve managed to bring in, which has been good.

“It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks, with Del’s announcement, but it’s been business as normal and pre-season has run as we wanted it to.”

Deal were the surprise package in Southern Counties East last season, enjoying their best league campaign in years.

The continuity that comes with King’s appointment leaves them well-placed to build on that.

“We’ve lost a couple but we’ve kept the majority of the squad and we’re pleased with the players we’ve brought in,” said King.

“We don’t know exactly what the SCEFL is going to look like, in terms of who’s investing a lot of money.

“A lot of clubs are going to be building completely new sides, where the bonus we’ll have is a more settled side in terms of the number of players who’ve stayed on.

“We’re still looking to add two or three and we’ll be looking to finish as high as we can, but we’ll know more about the league 10 games into the season.”