Darts return to training
Dartford Gillingham
Dartford are back training in preparation for their National League South play-off campaign.
Manager Steve King has a 21-man squad to work from as they look to end a fragmented season on a high. No date has yet been firmed up but quarter-final opponents Slough Town are preparing their Arbour Park ground for the visit of Dartford on the weekend of July 18/19.
Dartford players have been tested for Covid-19 and are following detailed guidelines as they gear up for a return to action.
The Darts have been told they can’t make any changes to the squad that was in place pre-lockdown, apart from a goalkeeper. Loan players can be resigned and King has managed to get permission for both Tarique Hyde (Colchester) and Amrit Bansal-McNulty (QPR) to play.
Billy Crook, a January 2019 signing from Braintree won’t be available for the play-offs, however. The midfielder has told the club he won’t be involved.
King said: “His wife is having a baby in August and felt he wanted to concentrate on that. It is each and everyone’s own decision. He is the only one that is not playing.
“We have 21 players. We can’t sign anyone else but all of these players got us into the position we are in and now it will be a lottery.
“We could beat Slough, Slough could beat us. Everyone in these play-offs can all beat each other and there is no home advantage. Slough have an artificial pitch but we train on one every single week.”
Clubs in the play-offs will be allowed to make extra subs. Five can be used from six named (which must include a goalkeeper) but teams will only have three opportunities in a match to make changes.
Gillingham chairman Paul Scally believes they will be better positioned than others when they return from the Covid-19 lockdown.
Mr Scally is celebrating 25 years at the helm this week and is facing one of his biggest challenges since taking over the club in 1995 as he looks to keep the club afloat.
He’s overcome the ITV Digital crisis – one that cost the club millions in lost revenue – and believes the club will be fit to fight again when a date to resume is announced.
He said: “We are using this shutdown period wisely. We are not sitting down moping or moaning about our bad luck. We are just getting ready for when we sail again.
“I think ITV was probably a bigger problem for me, with this pandemic it is so big and so international that we are almost passengers on a journey.
“We are actually in a better position than many because our cost-base has been conservative. It’s not been low, it has been appropriate for the business. “The fact that others have played roulette and rolled the dice on many occasions and run up huge costs and overheads and are now suffering as a result of that is not my problem really. “I listen to other chairman and stake holders, they are panicking, they are in trouble, their bills are significant with no income and they are all moaning. It is a bit like, ‘what do you expect?’ When you go to Vegas and play the tables, as you have all been doing, you are not necessarily always going to win. “There is one League 1 club who have an overhead of about £600,000 a month with no income and that is probably 10 times more than ours at the moment. “We will be lighter, keener, slimmer, leaner, fitter. I think people on board will all be focussed on the journey ahead and I think we could actually go further.
“I think in every aspect we will be in a stronger position, physically, mentally, strategically, we will be in good shape, we are just not quite sure yet when we will be sailing. “We know it isn’t going to be in the next couple of months, that’s for sure, so I know I have one or two months to finish what I am doing here.
“We have had fantastic support