Isthmian’s top division is a long way from county three for Dom

at for a long time but it is the longest I’ve been at any club. I was at Clymping for four years and East Preston for just over three.

What’s even crazier is that five years before joining Horsham I was managing in County League division three.

Now here we are a decade on with Horsham in the Isthmian premier. Are you one of those managers who lays out a five-year plan when you came in and, if so, have you achieved what you set out to do? Not really. We had a plan at EP (East Preston) that we wanted to get out of division two and into the County League premier but we always knew there was only so far we could take a village team.

Clymping were never going to be in a position to play senior football, and Worthing United wasn’t sustainable, but although I knew Horsham were a big club, it was difficult to plan too much when we first arrived because of the groundshare and financial issues.

There was a lot of uncertainty about things at that stage. You’d just ended a fairly turbulent spell at Hastings when the Horsham manager’s job became available. Had your experience at Hastings knocked your confidence or did it make you more determined to succeed at Horsham? Yes, we had three months at Hastings and it just didn’t work out for a number of reasons.

It wasn’t really Hastings’ fault, I just think we were there at the wrong time.

I did apply for the role as soon as it came up and met with John and Kevin, who told me they had set Stoz (Anthony Storey) and Cliff Cant a target of three wins from four.

I went to all the games, home and away, and they only went and pulled it off and were given the job permanently.

I remember being at Carshalton where Horsham nicked it with a penalty, a real smash and grab effort, and I turned to Ian Browne and said ‘it’s not going to happen’.

So we went away and looked at other clubs but then Horsham had a bad Easter, I think they got thumped at Walton & Hersham, and we got our chance.

Read more from Di Paola below, on the Horsham FC website and in next week’s County Times

Dominic Di Paola, pictured in the Hornets touchline in 2016, has been reflecting on his five years as manager