Sevenoaks Town - The Long Road To The Top

Earlier today, it was announced that Sevenoaks Town, a Sunday League club, playing in the Kent Premier League had appointed shamed ex-Sky Sports presenter Andy Gray.





Back in 2011, he was sacked from Sky Sports for chauvinistic comments made during a match in which he said " Can you believe that? A female linesman. Women don't know the offside rule." He has also lent his voice to popular video game franchise Fifa. It will be interesting to see how someone with no experience in management does with an amateur team from Kent.

As he prepared for his last day for Talksport, journalists pounded the phone of Andy Gray.




The former Scotland international and disgraced Sky Sports commentator has recently been appointed by Kent Premier League side Sevenoaks Town. The amateur club, who play their home games at Greatness Park, said that they wanted to hire a manager with good experience to his name. Here are some of the questions that our BBC Kent journalists fielded to him.

Q.So Andy,how happy are you to be here?
A.I'm not going to lie, it's not my dream job but I believe that if we take this seriously we can achieve success.

Q. So, it sounds like you're going to be concentrating on the league?
A. Well of course, I just want to redeem myself and if that means starting at the bottom then that is what I'll have to do.

Q. And finally, if we could just revisit the year 2011, the year that you made a sexist comment live on air during coverage of a match on Sky Sports? Any regrets?
A. Of course I regret it, I wouldn't have said it if I didn't know my microphone was on.
BBC Kent: Thanks Andy
Andy Gray: Cheers.

So whether he will be a success at the Sunday League team remains to be seen and we'll just have to wait to see how his career progresses.

Fabio Jesus, Nathan Thompson, Connor Callaghan and Jack Munday sign for Sevenoaks Town!

Andy Gray has made his first four signings as manager of Sevenoaks Town. Connor Callaghan, released by Crystal Palace at the end of last season joins to strengthen the midfield, Fabio Jesus, who played for Isthmian 1st Division North team Waltham Forest last season, comes in to upgrade the wings. Nathan Thompson, formerly of Boston United has been drafted into the reserves team so that he can get experience. They have also signed young player Jack Munday who had a trial with them last week. Andy Gray said " Connor and Fabio were both scouted by the scouting team here before I arrived. Connor look really promising while Fabio is going to be more of a fringe player who will only play if needed. He knows that and has told me he is happy with that so we'll have to see what they're like in action. Nathan will not be playing for us just yet. He'll have to develop in the reserves before we play him. Jack knows he's got to prove himself and I've told him I believe in him. Hopefully he'll have a good season for us. "

We've compiled a report on the four players.

Andy Gray has signed two big players for his squad.He had already signed more than 15 players for the sqaud. Mirko Ranieri, comes into a squad that does not hold many goalkeepers. He was released by Tottenham in June and several Blue Square Premier teams were said to be interested. He chose Sevenoaks Town in the end who needed more quality between the posts. Here is our report.




The other player who has signed is Connor Morris, who was released by Charlton Athletic at the end of last season. Again, several higher league clubs were said to be interested.

The day before the season kicks off, Andy Gray, manager of Sevenoaks Town, has released a list of club transfers, with a total of 24 players joining the Sunday League club and 2 players leaving so far. Andy Gray said "I think it's great to have depth within the squad. It gives us backup should one of our key players get injured." Here's the list.

If anyone is interested in any of the above players rating or attributes, feel free to ask. Thanks.

As the Kent Premier League kicks off tomorrow, we thought we'd give you the pre-season results. See below.




















We thought that we'd start running a monthly awards system here at Kent News.

We'll start this off with pre-season awards.

Player of the pre-season: Connor Corbett, 3 goals




Young player of the pre-season: Jack Munday, 2 goals




We'll be back at the end of the month with Sevenoaks Town's results in the competitions and have our monthly awards ceremony. Goodbye.

Is this story coming to an end with the other one having started?

Yes sorry, it crashed like my Jamie Carragher one but i've sorted it now.
Just a question, what did you think of this one?

Maybe instead of using the Oxford Mail banner for every post you should experiment with the different types of headings. Take a look at the bbcodes page and look at how other writers set theirs out!

Did you see my carragher one?