LEE BRADBURY knew there was only one way for Havant & Waterlooville to get over relegation – win the Ryman Premier title.
The Hawks boss did some serious soul searching last summer as the club more used to pushing for promotion, tumbled out of the National League South.
Bradbury vowed to put it right. Feeling some players weren’t prepared to do enough for the badge, he recruited from the club’s doorstep including the goals of Jason Prior and Alfie Rutherford from Bognor Regis Town.
He also made very clear the goal for the new season to make sure their stay at Step 3 was brief.
“Since day one of pre-season, my vision and demand has been to win the league,” Bradbury says. “The players have stood up to it, dealt with it and done it.
“It gave us that added expectation, and perhaps pressure, but I felt we had the players to deal with that and it was proven in the end.
Respectful
“To come straight back takes character, organisation and a bit of guts. There’s going to be ups and downs. People outside the club may think because we’ve come down we’re going to win the league easily, win every game 3-0, and it’s going to be a cruise.
“It’s not. This is a tough league, there are some good teams in the Ryman Premier and we had to respect it.
“At the same time we had to not fear it. We didn’t, we were respectful to it, and if you do that, and work hard, you’ve always got a chance.
“It’s been a really close-knit group this season. That’s been a major change. We’ve had good people as well as good players. We’ve not carried one person.
“You need the right characters and the right mix. Recruitment, at any level, is very important.”
Neck and neck with Bognor all season, a huge Easter Monday win against their top spot rivals put the trophy’s destination in their own hands on the final day.
Away at Kingstonian knowing a win would guarantee it, Bradbury also had a spy on the south-coast to see how their rivals fared against Met Police.
“We had someone down there watching the game and relaying to our kitman what was going on,” says Bradbury, whose side ended up drawing 0-0.
“Bognor went 1-0 up and it was difficult. We had two forwards on the pitch already and we’d had to make an early sub when Brian Stock got injured. So we didn’t want to force it too early and leave ourselves with just one sub. The timing was going to be key.
“Just as we were about to put another centre forward on, we found out it was 1-1 and we were back in the driving seat again.
“We were four or five minutes behind Bognor, so we knew when we were still playing that we were promoted. I sent Ed Harris up front because I wanted to win the game, knowing even if we lost we were champions.
“It was a really good day and I’m really pleased for everyone at the football club. When anybody gets promoted it’s an effort from everyone at the club – that’s volunteers, supporters, directors, players, staff. Everyone has worked really hard and been together this year. It’s a big contrast between this season and last.”
Benchmark
Bradbury is already looking to the future. When he takes The NLP‘s call on Tuesday he’s out scouting – and he’s aiming high again.
“Our benchmark has got to be the play-offs,” he says. “You look at Poole and Hungerford, who both went up from Step 3 last year, and they are in and around the play-offs. That’s what we want to try and achieve.
“We want to chase the play-offs of we can. It will get tough because there are a lot of good teams in the National League South. But it’s a league I’m used to and so are a lot of the players.
“We’ve been in the play-offs before so we know what it’s about. The standard gets better every year, it’s a tough league, but I think this is the strongest squad I’ve had since I’ve been at the club. It’s a welcome challenge.”
