Nick Davis says he missed Sittingbourne after returning for a third spell in the Brickies hot seat.

Davis has left Isthmian South East rivals VCD to succeed Darren Blackburn at Woodstock.

He was happy where he was but found the pull of Sittingbourne too great to resist.

“I wasn’t overly looking to move on,” said Davis, who led Sittingbourne to the top of Isthmian South East during his previous spell.

“But the opportunity arose, Sittingbourne approached me and a couple of my staff were leaving VCD.

“VCD’s a lovely little club, it’s the first club I played for and I can only speak highly of them.

“It took me three days to think things over but I just felt the better opportunity to progress and move forward was at Sittingbourne.

“Speaking with the board that’s in place, the old guard and the new, there seems to have been a lot of change in the years I’ve been away, and it looks like the club’s going in the right direction.

“I enjoyed my time there before and, when I left, I really missed it.

“It was a tough decision to leave VCD but sometimes you have to go with your gut feeling and here I am.”

Davis, who is still to name his backroom staff, was joint-manager alongside Matt Wyatt from September 2013 to July 2014.

He then spent more than three years in sole charge from October 2014 to January 2018 before standing down.

He worked with Brickies captain Kane Rowland previously and also brought defender Lex Allan into the first-team fold, leading to trials with Premier League and Football League clubs.

He’ll be assessing the rest of the squad and working out where to make changes, with Sittingbourne hoping to challenge for the Isthmian South East play-offs next season in what will be a strong league.

It will be tougher than ever with Chatham and Sheppey coming up from Southern Counties East, while Beckenham and FA Vase finalists Littlehampton have also been promoted.

“Eighty per cent of the league will think they can make the play-offs,” said Davis.

“Clubs have got to have that ambition and that will be ours, to make that top five.

“It’ll be a stronger league than last year, so it’ll be tougher, but it will be an exciting league.

“I’ve got a lot on my plate trying to sort out my backroom staff, organising a pre-season, speaking to all the players and then trying to recruit and improve on what we’ve got there.

“Everyone’s going to get an opportunity but that works both ways, doesn’t it?

“We just need to see where we need to strengthen and I’m talking to one or two now, as you might imagine.

“There are good lads there who have done well and hopefully we can introduce a few who will make us stronger.

“It’s early days, there’s a lot of work to happen, but we’ve still got a couple of months before the season starts.”