AGAINST all the odds, Faversham Town FC intend to kick-off the new Kent League season at Salters Lane on Saturday.

John Roseman, the former Sheppey and Whitstable manager, has agreed to put a team together for the first match against Erith and Tuesday’s game against Ramsgate, also at home.

Roseman accepted the manager’s job after chairman Tony Hillier-Carter said he had persuaded the national and county football associations to accept that Town’s finances were in order and lift the suspension which threatened the club’s existence.

Phil Sainsbury, one of the stalwarts of Faversham’s league and cup winning years of the early 1990s, is one of four local players Mr Roseman has invited to play. The others are Rob Beazleigh, John Goodwin and Toby Andrews.

But he admitted: "I haven’t really got a team and I don’t have the resources to get one. But somehow we will get a team out and I hope at least the four local boys will bring their mums and dads to watch.”

Mr Roseman said he had accepted the job because it was a challenge, and because Mr Hillier-Carter “kept coming back to me, driving me mad".

Both men stressed that they would seek to develop the Faversham Town youth section, to protect the club’s future.

Children accompanied by an adult will be admitted free on Saturday. The price for adults is £4, and for pensioners £2.