GAZ GETS HIMSELF BACK IN THE GAME
GARY ALEXANDER doesn’t mind hanging his boots up again to join Ashford United’s management team – even if he only came out of retirement a week ago!
The 38-year-old former Leyton Orient, Millwall, Brentford, Crawley Town and AFC Wimbledon striker quit as Bostik South Greenwich Borough boss ten days ago citing financial constraints suddenly imposed on him and broken promises.
Chatham Town boss James Collins was straight on the phone to offer him a game and he took up the Southern Counties East League club’s invitation.
Alexander netted on his final Chats appearance yesterday before he becomes Jason Whitmore’s assistant – a position vacated by Paul Barnes who replaced him at Greenwich earlier in the week.
Opportunity
The plan is for Whitmore to move upstairs in the summer with Alexander taking on the manager’s role.
“It’s mad how football works sometimes,” Alexander told The
NLP. “It’s obviously all change and that’s football. I’m used to that, I had 20 years of it playing. You can be with someone one day and all of a sudden you never see them again or you’re playing against them.
“I went into Chatham to play some games while I was waiting for another job and luckily enough an opportunity has come up – and one with plenty of potential.
“It was my first 90 minutes in probably about two years so you can imagine how I was feeling the next day! I enjoyed it. Football has been in my life and to get a game again when you never thought you’d play competitively again, I can’t thank Chatham enough.
“It was good to meet the chairman and James Collins, who I brought in at Greenwich to have a look at how we worked, returned the favour. They’re another club with great potential – they had 300 fans there for my first game at home and the chairman has huge aspirations to move the club forward.”
Alexander said his goodbyes at Chatham yesterday but he’s already had a training session with his new club and he’s impressed by what the Nuts & Bolts have to offer.
“It’s good to go in with Jason and see how the club runs and how it works,” he said. “It’s got everything in place. I went to training, there’s food laid on after and that’s music to my ears and the professionalism I want to be involved in.
“There’s even a kit man whereas for the last two years John Mackie has been my assistant plus kit man. They are little things that make a difference.
“So the base is there and we need to build on that. They’re down the bottom of the table at the moment and it’s not going to change overnight. But hopefully we can get the club moving forward and climbing that table.
“I’m joining a football club with an unbelievable fan base – that’s just from playing against them in the Kent League over the years. I’m reading on twitter that they’re taking over 100 fans away to Guernsey. So there’s huge potential there.”