GLENN’S STILL GOT THE DRIVE TO SUCCEED
Ex-Leiston boss ready to go again
“IN TIME ALL THE THERE I’VE BEEN WE’VE NEVER BEEN OUT SIX FOR OF THE TWO TOP SO I’M WEEKS WHAT PROUD I’VE OF DONE” – Glenn Driver
GLENN DRIVER has big ambitions to take a club up the Pyramid.
The 44-year-old manager made a shock departure from Southern League Central outfit Leiston a fortnight ago.
Since taking the reins just over two years ago, the Suffolk club quickly became known for an entertaining brand of football that nearly took them to promotion to Step 2.
They lost out in the Bostik Premier play-off semi-final to Dulwich Hamlet last season and have got off to a good start in the newly-formed Step 3 division.
But a heart-to-heart with club chiefs left Driver feeling they’re happy with their current status and they parted ways.
Now he’s ready to jump straight back in a hotseat.
“I want to test myself either at this level again or higher,” Driver said, “with a club with a lot of ambition, a good infrastructure and an academy. I’m a believer in bringing kids through a system and giving them an opportunity to play first team football.
“When I first joined Leiston it was first team, first team, first team. The previous manager, Richard Wilkins, brought me in to take the U18s and reserves. With my assistant Tony Kinsella, we took that forward.
“The reserves had finished rock bottom and we took them to a top-six finish. The U18s were a park side – last season they won their league. The infrastructure just wasn’t there so that’s been one of the most pleasing things. It was managing the football club to gear it to push on.
“The crowds average over 300 now with the style of football we play. We missed out on the play-offs in our first season by four minutes against Enfield, last year we made the play-offs and then created history by winning the Suffolk Premier Cup.
“Myself and Tony would love the chance to manage a club where the infrastrucright ture is there. I just felt the hours I put in – I stood in when the U18s’ manager couldn’t make it and I did the reserves a couple of weeks before I left – I now want to manage a club where all that is in place and you can put all your efforts into the first team and oversee the rest.” Driver, who is happy to travel from his Ipswich base for his next opening, says he doesn’t have a bad word to say about the Blues and understands they don’t want to overstretch.
“I’ve stayed friends with everybody,” Driver said. “There’s one or two things I don’t agree with, but it’s not to go public. I got a message from the director of football saying I’ve left a legacy there so in some senses you’re disappointed to leave. “I do feel for the club. They’re in a league where they’re doing a lot more travelling and if they were to get promoted, National League North football would probably cripple the club financially. “We were unlucky against Dulwich last year and deserved more. But I came away with the sense they were just happy we’d reached the play-offs. That was the start of asking where they want to go as a football club. “In all the time I’ve been there, we’ve not been out of the top six for two weeks so I’m proud of what I’ve done.”