More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Dover Academy boss Mike Sandmann is looking forward to tonight being involved in the club’s first Kent derby this season.
First-team manager Andy Hessenthaler will return to the dugout after a two-match touchline ban as his troops welcome Tonbridge to Crabble but he will still be assisted by Sandmann who had been deputising in his absence.
Both teams have taken four points from their first two league fixtures of the new campaign and Sandmann hopes Whites can build on that against Jay Saunders’ side after picking up a 1-0 home success over Hungerford at the weekend through Alfie Pavey’s headed goal.
“Kent derbies are always great nights,” said Sandmann who says he is due to remain with the first-team squad until at least next week.
“There’s a lot of players in that dressing room [for Dover] that know their players and have played for Tonbridge so it’s going to be a great game.
“Saturday puts us in a really good position in terms of confidence and the supporters will get behind us after Saturday’s win so the boys are looking forward to it.
“They will come here confident. They had a good start to the season in their first game [beating Weymouth 3-1] but we will be confident. We have got some very, very good players and you can see how hard they are prepared to work.
“We are still a really new team together - so it’s going to take a little bit of time to click - but four points from our starting two games, we couldn’t be more pleased and we’ll hope to build on it.”
Sandmann also spoke highly of Angels manager Saunders, who he will come up against, the pair having worked together at Margate.
He said: “I know Jay extremely well, he’s a good friend of mine.
“I know how his teams play and what he’ll demand.
“They’ll be hard-working, they’ll be resilient, they’ll be tough to beat, and they’ll have some real threat going forward as well.
“We’ll have to be organised and at our best once again. There’s a little bit of extra edge because it’s a Kent derby but we have some really good players in the dressing room.
“We will be looking to get a result.”
Tonbridge drew 1-1 at Slough last weekend, Joe Turner converting a penalty to earn them a point.
