An emotional Neil Cugley has shared his memories of the tragic day Paul Sykes died after collapsing on the pitch.

Sykes, 28, was playing for Cugley's Folkestone Invicta side on Tuesday, April 12, 2005.

Speaking on the KM Football Podcast, the manager recalled what happened.

"It was horrendous," said Cugley.

"We were playing Margate in the Kent Senior Cup semi-final and the goalie caught the ball and pushed Sykesy back a little bit. Sykesy went backwards and backwards and he just toppled over.

"I remember Chris Kinnear, who was managing Margate, half-laughed but then suddenly (Sykes) went flat, he wasn’t moving.

"Dave Williams, my physio, went running on the pitch and you just knew it wasn't right.

"It was no good me going on, I didn’t know anything about it but Dave Williams had been trained to deal with it.

"The next minute, I remember I looked at Mark Munday and he shook his head; not good.

"The ambulance arrived, I jumped in my car and thought ‘whatever happens, I’ve got to go, I’ve got to follow the ambulance to Ashford Hospital'.

"Micky Dix, who was with me then, jumped in the car and said ‘I’ll come with you’.

"We were driving along, following the ambulance, blue lights flashing away and after a little while, it slowed down. I thought ‘uh oh’ because there’s no rush to get there.

"The worst thing about that was when we were at the hospital. Carly, his wife, turned up thinking he had a head injury, a football injury, and didn’t know. The doctor pulled her aside in the next room and (she gave) the biggest scream you could ever hear. I’ll never forget that. Horrible."

Tributes poured in and a memorial game was arranged but Sykes' death rocked Cugley.

He said: "It hurt me. I could even cry now.

"So much was going on and it was just the time when social media started so you could put a lot of messages on and a lot of good things came out of that. That was very good.

"It was a few weeks later, I used to do a little bit of driving, delivering fruit and veg and I remember pulling over and I cried over that.

"The only thing was it was near the end of the season. The funeral was on Friday and we had Heybridge on the Saturday at home. All the players stayed down and that was one day I didn’t care what they did.

"We couldn’t find Kess, the goalie, for most of the next day. Everybody went out and had too many drinks.

"We lost the next game 2-0 but nobody really cared. It was our last home game of the season so it went from there.

"I still keep in touch with Carly; she’s such a nice lady as well. That was a horrible time."

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