EDWARDS PLANNING A FEW BIG SURPRISES
CRAIG EDWARDS hopes Monday’s play-off final win has really put Cheshunt on the map.
The former Grays and Billericay Town boss has transformed the Ambers from a club struggling to stay afloat in Step 4, to a team that will be playing Step 2 football for the first time next season.
And he thinks the scale of the achievement will take some time to sink in for everyone.
“I’d like to think it’s put Cheshunt on the map,” Edwards said. “We always known as ‘Little old Cheshunt’, the, if you like, poorer neighbours of some of our local sides. But we are turning the corner.
“We’re delighted. It’s a tough league – to go to Stortford and Hornchurch and beat them both away. We had the best away record, won the Herts Senior Cup, the Trophy run – all history making. Now to take them up to Step 2, I don’t think anyone can quite believe it.
“We’ll be by far the smallest club in the National League South. But hopefully we can go and surprise a few people.”
Edwards says their strength has been in the close-knit group.
“Do you know the most impressive thing?” Edwards said. “My most difficult decision on Monday was the four who wouldn’t make the bench,” Edwards said. “Then you’ve got the five who are on the bench.
“Over the last three
or four weeks Kayne Diedrick Roberts has scored some unbelievable goals as us and been as good as anyone. Now, he was on the bench and didn’t get on. If you see him waiting for the final whistle and then running on the pitch, you’d think he’d scored a hattrick. It was the same for the four boys who didn’t make the bench.
“There so together. Obviously they all desperately want to play but they are 100 per cent together. We will be looking to bring a few boys into strengthen the squad. But it makes that task so much harder because they’ve got to have the same attributes.”
While attention soon shifts to the next challenge, Edwards will enjoy reflecting on one of his most enjoyable seasons in a 20-year management career.
“I’ve never known anything like this,” he said. “The unbridled success and determination of the boys. Probably my first season was one of the closest when I was at Barkingside. They’d never won anything in their 100-year history and we won the Spartan Premier and the London Senior Cup.
“This has been, without a doubt, the best season I’ve had since then. I’m not talking about winning things, I’ve been at some terrific clubs with terrific support, won leagues, won cups – but this is unreal.”