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Building a championship winning team is an achievement - doing it twice is something else.
Micky Collins had already taken Erith & Belvedere from the depths of the Kent League to the title but he started the journey all over again after taking charge of Sevenoaks Town in 2014.
Collins said he was “honoured” to have been given the chance of improving things on the field at Greatness Park while the committee set about enhancing them off it.
Having already won the title with Erith & Belvedere people were asking “can he do it again?”
Chairman Paul Lansdale had been in charge for a season before announcing Collins as replacement in the April of 2014. Town finished the season second from bottom with five wins from 32 games. It was a huge task that faced Collins, but he had been there and done it before.
“It was harder at Sevenoaks,” Collins admitted.
“It was tougher because, without being rude to Sevenoaks, they didn’t have the ground up to the same standard as Park View Road (home of 2012/13 Kent League winners Erith & Belvedere) and that was a big attraction for people. They would play for £40 and want to play there.
“Because Sevenoaks had been that bad for a period of time it was so hard to change people’s mentality. I talked of rebuilding this and that and they were saying, ‘no, not at Sevenoaks.' We had to try and change that mindset.
"We didn’t start with massive budgets, we went in there sensibly.”
Collins pointed the team in the right direction and just like his time at PVR there was progression every season. They finished eighth in the first, fifth the next and then third in 2016/17.
They won the Premier Division Challenge Cup in that third season and then Collins felt they were ready for it.
Background to the season;
Collins said: “I look at the season we won the cup and I don’t think as a club we were ready to go up that year. We were waiting for the 3G and other stuff to be done and we did it, then we managed to get the promotion and now we are in a great situation really.
“I felt the pressure more as a manager at Sevenoaks because people are looking at you. The club said ‘within five years can we get promoted to step four?’ I said yes.
“Myself and the chairman are great pals. He said he would build the club off the pitch, along with the directors, and he left me to deal with everything on it. I said, ‘okay, fine’. By doing that you immediately say ‘I am going to get us promoted.’
“With Erith & Belvedere there was no pressure. They weren’t that worried about going up, they just wanted to be competitive, win a cup and be successful. The only pressure at Erith was what I put on myself.
“At Sevenoaks I put all the pressure on me, I took it off the players, I said ‘we have to go up, I want to go up’. People were saying, ‘is he going to do it again?’
The rivals;
Crowborough had finished runners-up the previous year and they were along for the ride most of the season but the big challengers were Whitstable Town.
An early defeat to Cray Valley was shrugged off and Collins' side went on a great run early doors, avoiding any more league defeats until a midweek loss at home to Erith Town in mid-February. One defeat in 21 wasn’t a bad start.
But it wasn’t to be plain sailing. Whitstable went on a charge of their own, sandwiched inbetween a couple of defeats to Cray Valley. Inbetween those vital losses they went 20-games unbeaten in the league, beating Sevenoaks too.
“Whitstable put on a massive charge,” Collins recalled.
“It was incredible and they were chipping away at us. We were up there for ages and they were coming after us, we were thinking ‘oh, no,'
“Crowborough fell away but Whitstable kept going and Scott Porter was doing a great job.”
Promotion secured;
With two games left, Town travelled to Corinthian hoping to take the pressure off those final fixtures.
Collins said: “It was 0-0 if I remember, for ages and ages, then they had a lack of discipline, I don’t know what happened to them, they had three players sent off in the second half, they went down to eight men.”
Billy Bennett’s injury-time winner from Greg Benbow’s cross clinched a 2-1 win and guaranteed Town a top-two finish.
The main aim was achieved but Collins said: “We knew two were going up, it was pressure off because you knew you were going to get promoted, but as a manager you want to win the title.
“You don’t want to go up as runner-up. We stuck with it and we just said, ‘we have to win the league.’
“We had a great bunch of players. There were people I sought and got who had won things before, people like Jason Thompson. He had won it at Whyteleafe. They had a little more experience and knew how to get us over the line.”
Clinching the crown;
Town were away to Erith Town while Whitstable were up against Cray Valley.
Both teams had one more game to play but Whitstable’s defeat to Cray coupled with a 2-1 win for Town ensured Collins had his second title secured.
He said: “With five or six minutes to play that we knew we had won the league title and it was a nice feeling.
“We shook hands with the other management and said, ‘please excuse us but we’re going to celebrate.’ On the day Erith Town were a class act, they looked after us, gave us a bottle of champagne and showed great hospitality.
“It’s not nice when someone wins the league title at your ground, something you are aspiring to do, but they embraced it, it was fantastic.
“It wasn’t easier winning the title second time around but it was more comfortable at the end!”
Town had one final game, a midweek trip to East Sussex side Crowborough. They ended the season with another 2-1 win and would eventually finish six points clear of their nearest challengers Whitstable.
“We got a guard of honour from them (Crowborough) which was nice,” Collins said. “They were rivals of ours but they respected us and treated us correctly. We enjoyed our evening and won the game.”
A second league title;
Collins said: “To walk away and think, ‘wow I have done it with two clubs’, that is amazing. Two clubs in five years.
“The biggest thing for me was that, no disrespect to both, but neither were on the up at the time, they were both in the doldrums.
“Erith had been struggling but we spun that, we turned the club’s mentality around and got the feel good factor back, which is what it is all about.
“Then I had to do it again, at Sevenoaks, and we did it.
“I’ve had a lot of people helping me along the way, with assistant managers and other coaches, it is a team effort, everyone chips in on and off the pitch, directors and chairman, all the volunteers too.
“When I have left and the club carries on, fans will always cherish those moments. We are now competing at step four, we are not struggling and we’re still building.”
The journey goes on;
Town finished their first season in the South East Division of the Isthmian League sitting 10th. The 2019/20 season was abandoned in March because of coronavrius. Town were once again placed 10th.
The 2020/21 season will be Collins’ 10th in management.
“You look and think ‘where has it gone!?’ he said.
“It was nice this year, I had my son (Louis) playing, he came in and scored a few goals. He will probably go back to playing full time football in the summer.
“Sevenoaks is a great club. The club has come from nowhere and actually got it right on and off the pitch and that is a credit to everyone involved, not just me picking a team.”
When asked to compare those two titles, Collins commented: “I think on the night, for excitement, Erith tips the balance but for what it meant to win the second one and to do it with another club, having to build it again, that meant more. The story goes on.”
Read more from the Decade of Champions series;
Dartford 2009/10 - Burman does it again
Faversham Town 2009/10 - From bottom to top
Hythe Town 2010/11 - A last-gasp triumph
Herne Bay 2011/12 - Third time lucky!
Welling United 2012/13 - The gamble pays off
Erith & Belvedere 2012/13- Goals, goals, goals
Folkestone Invicta 2015/16 - They smashed it!
