(Image: Folkstone Invicta manager Neil Cugley with his Lifetime Achievement award at The Non-League Paper’s National Game Awards in 2016)
Folkestone Invicta boss Neil Cugley is set to become the longest serving manager in the top seven tiers of English football when Arsene Wenger steps down as Arsenal boss at the end of the season.
Wenger has been in charge of the North London club for over 22 years but has called time on his reign.
The 68-year-old has managed the Gunners for a total of 823 games achieving almost everything in the game at club level.
He inherited the longest serving tag in August when Wealdstone‘s Gordon Bartlett stepped down.
His arrival at the Stones in 1995 pre-dated Wenger’s arrival as a virtual unknown at Highbury by some 16 months.
Cugley took over the reins at Cheriton Road in the summer of 1996 and marked 1000 games in charge in 2016 before clinching the Ryman Division One South title.
Tomorrow’s fixture against Dulwich Hamlet will be his 800th league match in charge of the club that he regards as his home town team, having grown up and gone to school in Folkestone.
