A STAR-MAKER FOR THE KINGS

Cummins hungry to develop players

KINGS Langley boss Chris Cummins played a big part in Ashley Young’s development at Watford – and now he wants to polish up more gems at Kings Langley.

The 48-year-old took over as manager at Southern Premier Central Lango in October and, after a rocky start, led them on an unbeaten run from Boxing Day to the season’s curtailment in March.

Finishing 10th in Step 3, the Hertfordshire club are now hoping they can continue their recent meteoric rise through the pyramid.

Lango are one of only five clubs to gain three successive promotions in the UK – achieving this between 2014 and 2016.

And they’ll be hoping Cummins’ impressive pedigree in

players can make a difference.

In his days as director of youth football at Watford, Cummins, below, honed the talents of plenty of young starlets, most notably Young, who went on to shine for Manchester United and England and is now at Inter Milan.

Ambition

“I spent 20 years at Watford and the budgets used to be tiny – in fact, Ashley Young’s mum used to bring us tea and coffee!” he told The NLP.

“Here, we’ve brought in an Under-18s coach, Mark Fryer, and we want to set up a reserve team so young players can develop as best as they can.

“I’m really enjoying my football here. There was no pressure last year to get promotion, the real target was to stay in the division.

“But it would be wrong to say there is no ambition. We’ll have an outside chance of promotion this year. If we can develop players and help them move on to bigger clubs, then that’s what we’re really about. “The pressure comes from myself; I want to win football matches as well. Will Hoskins and Jorproducing dan Parkes are two lads who bring fantastic experience and I want to help them get into coaching as well.

“The board have been fantastic; they are really supportive and honest about the money situation.”

Project

Cummins spent time coaching in the youth set-ups at Toronto and Luton Town before joining Reading. But when he left the Madejski in 2013, he admits he had little appetite for returning to football before Kings came calling.

“Until Kings Langley came around, I was reluctant to get back into professional football, let alone Non-League,” he added. “But it seemed the right project.

“When I came in there were six or seven lads on big contracts and I couldn’t understand why. I think the club panicked about not being able to attract big players and that’s not what I’m about. The boys need to want to play for the club.

“My biggest worry was losing the players we wanted to keep. If they had gone, we would have been in trouble. But every player has taken a pay cut and stayed, which shows what they’re about.

“I hope to be here for a long time and I want to get the club as stable as possible. We have the squad, now it’s time to win some football matches!”