Relegation was kick in teeth - but we'll be back

Sidlesham score against Selsey at Easter - but now they've been relegated from division one / Picture by Chris Hatton

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Sidlesham have vowed to bounce back from the '˜kick in the teeth' of being relegated to the bottom tier of the Southern Combination League.

The Sids have been cast into division two for 2016-17 despite finishing 11th in the 18-team first division last term.

The reason is their floodlights don’t work – although there will be other clubs without lights in division one next season.

Sids have accepted their lot and now hope for a season when they can do what they need to do on the pitch and off it. New people have been attracted to the club and that includes a strong-looking management team backing up manager Gary Jefkins.

He will be helped by assistant manager Andy Bell, player-coach Daren Pearce and assistant coach Malcolm Harwood. All three have considerable county-league experience.

Sids were devastated when they were relegated by SCFL officials after the end of last season because of their ground grading.

Jefkins said: “It was a kick in the teeth. We’d been told in December parts of the ground didn’t match the grading needed for division one (step six).

“The main problem is floodlights. We’ve got the columns but they need rewiring and that will cost £15,000-£20,000. We didn’t think it would get us relegated because we finished 11th out of 18 after winning nine of our final 14 games, and clubs like Midhurst and Langney haven’t got lights and are allowed to stay up.

“It came down to the league needing to relegate one team to keep numbers even and it was us because we’d come up the previous year. So had Langney but they finished above us.

“We have to get on with it now and we had a meeting last week where we’ve got some new people coming into the club to move it forward.

“I’m delighted with the new management team and I think there will be a good feel about the place.

“The club are looking to get grants to help sort out the floodlights and on the pitch we will be going all out for promotion.

“Ideally we want to earn promotion and not have any issue that can stop the league allowing us to take our place in division one.”

The club are hopeful most of last season’s squad, who reached the semi-finals of the Division Two Cup as well as ending positively in the league, will return.

Friendlies have been lined up away to Fleetlands (Jul 16), away to Selsey