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Community club Coney Hall reveal ambitious plans to progress

New chairman wants Tiepigs Lane club to rise above Ryman League neighbours Bromley.

THE AMBITIOUS new chairman of Combined Counties League Division One outfit Coney Hall, has revealed promising plans for the future for the Tiepigs Lane club, writes Stephen McCartney.

Joe Farrugia, now retired, was a senior manager for British Telecom for thirty-five-years, and he is ready to put the plans in place for the smallest club in the London Borough in Bromley to play in the Ryman League within five years.

Speaking at the club's first mini-soccer tournament, which attracted over 1,000 people to their ground, Farrugia has a good record of bringing small projects up to scratch and he is aiming to achieve the same at Coney Hall.

Farrugia said: "This is my first season as chairman with the club and this is the first event I have helped to organise. As you can see, it's a very good turnout, the quality of football is excellent, the sideshows are brilliant, and I think we can go from strength to strength."

He has been inspired to improve the club after projects in Bermondsey, in what the chairman admitted was a "pretty tough area" and Dulwich proved successful.

He said: "My previous history is I ran a boys club in Bermondsey - a pretty tough area. We started from someone's front room and within five years we had our own clubhouse and I was also founder member of our residence association in Dulwich and did the same there and built a community centre, and that is what I want to see here."

Living in Coney Hall, the chairman wants to put something back into his local community and improve the facilities at their basic ground.

However, their site is only a ten-minute walk from Hayes (Kent) train station and is served by bus links to Bromley, Orpington and Eltham.

At the moment, their ground has only two dug-outs, a very small shelter, a metal barrier down one side of the pitch, training lights and a clubhouse with very small dressing rooms, but they do have a lot of space to improve their facilities and the heart to do so.

With the help from finance gained from their League Cup Semi-Final home game against AFC Wimbledon, which finished in a 2-2 draw after extra time, before they lost the replay 5-0 at Sutton United's Gander Green Lane ground, and funding from the Football Foundation, the ground will see big changes in the near future as the club look to progress into the Ryman League Division One for season 2006-07.

Ferrugia added: "This club has got to be used by the community, for the community!"

And he has every faith in twenty-eight-year-old former player and now manager of the first team, Chris Tucker, surely the youngest manager of any senior club in Kent football.

Ferrugia praised: "Chris Tucker is our first team manager, and he has done brilliantly with the team this year. We are a young team and I believe that the focus of this club is with the junior section coming through to support the seniors.

The new chairman, however, admitted he will not be splashing out the cash on players as the club aim to win promotion into the Premier Division of the Combined Counties League ready for the 2005-06 campaign.

He added: "My first prior aim is to get the club on a financial footing. I can see that we could be paying players in years to come. However, I can't promise anything next year, but who knows after that?

"We really want to develop the whole site here. My personal plan is to renew the clubhouse, get the playing areas up to first class and also get an all-weather pitch here so all our local teams, boys and girls, can come down here and use the facilities.

"I would also like to see the facilities used during the day - our facilities are under utilised so that's another priority."

With an ambitious five-year-action plan in place to redevelop the whole site at Tiepigs Lane, it's now up to manager Tucker to produce the goods on the pitch, as the club have already made rapid progress in a very short space of time.

Croydon based, Tucker said: "There is no pressure. I've told many people months ago that I've had a decent side down here.

"I didn't believe we would do as well as we did in our first season in Division One of the Combined Counties League. Obviously, within the five years, with Joe's and the new committee's backing, we will be right up there, playing in a decent standard of Ryman football." Tucker insisted.

The duo, however, feel very strongly that they can take over their Ryman League neighbours, Bromley, as the biggest football club in the area.

Tucker added: "Our next aim for next year is to finish in the promotion places, which is the top three, and if our standards are met by the Combined Counties League then we will progress up and as I've said before, in season 2006-07, we will be playing Ryman football."

"We've got money from the AFC Wimbledon game to do some ground development and obviously the financial backing, which is needed from sponsorship and from extra fundraising events.

"Within five years, there will be an action plan for us to be bigger than Bromley Football Club!" he boldly stated.

Tucker said: "Within three years I took a side up four divisions and up another step of the football ladder and within the next five years I believe I can do the same again. With the help from my committee and the chairman, there is no reason why we shouldn't be competing up there."

He reminded any doubters: "Don't forget, we were the only team to take AFC Wimbledon to extra time, we drew and we were robbed in the replay but no other teams have got on with them like we did. Three semi-finals and in our first year in Division One we should really have won the league but we wasn't good enough. I think within five years a realistic division for us will be in the Ryman League Division One."

His chairman added: "Chris has got our full support. I think it's brilliant with what he has done and we are going to be right behind him. But we are going to bring the whole club through. It's just not the seniors, it's the junior section as well. Because our juniors will become our seniors. They are our men of tomorrow, and we are going to build good men!

"Obviously in the last five years mini-soccer has taken over. With the Football Foundation funding that we've got already has allowed us to send a lot of our managers and our ex-junior players that are now sixteen on courses. They will all still be involved with the club. The idea is when they go on a course they must stick with the club and bring our juniors through. If you look at the league tables in the Tandridge League, it's probably been our best season in junior football."

Tucker admitted he isn't afraid of throwing youngsters into the fire at first team level.

He said: "I was the first Coney Hall manager and the first manager in Surrey Premier and Combined Counties history to play five sixteen-year-olds in one game. I have no hesitations. If the boys are good enough, they are old enough"

Farrugia is thankful for local businesses in Coney Hall, West Wickham and Hayes for their support in advertising in the programme for the Fun Day and Mini-Soccer tournament, and is hopeful for the same support next season.

He added: "We have no sponsors lined up yet, but we have had an excellent response from our first mini-soccer tournament we've held down at the club. We filled twenty pages of advertising and we didn't find it hard and we think we can involve local business - we want local businesses to be behind us - and it's just been excellent support from our friends and supporters in Coney Hall, West Wickham and Hayes."

And Tucker feels his club can attract floating supporters in the area, even though neighbours, Bromley and Cray Wanderers, will be both playing in the Ryman League Division One next season at Hayes Lane, which is a little over a mile or two from Coney Hall's Tiepigs Lane base.

Tucker said: "I believe we were the second biggest supported club in the Combined Counties League behind AFC Wimbledon. Our average gate was 80 but we had 260 here against Guildford in the semi-final, and 180 against Farleigh on Bank Holiday Monday.

"We are more supported than Bromley and Cray Wanderers, and that says it."

Farrugia, added: "I agree, and that's why we are going to be the best!"