Optimism and uncertainty as Marlow and Flackwell begin fresh campaigns

Naheer Nawaf. Photo: Theo Edwards

--Marlow and Flackwell Heath kick off their new seasons on Saturday and there will be a degree of optimism in both camps that they’ll be able to compete at the top end of the Southern League Central Division table.

Flackwell did so last season, finishing third overall and making it to the play-off final against Berkhamsted - where they suffered a heavy 5-0 defeat.

Yet they’ve lost a lot of their attacking talent from last season, with Wiktor Makowski, Michael Harding, Jethro Odumosu, Dylan Kearney and Eddie Lee all moving on for a variety of reasons.

Those players will be difficult to replace, and Flackwell aren’t blessed with the finances to do that easily, however, manager Chris Ayres and the team have done their best to find strikers who they hope will bring a similar number of goals to Wilks Park this season.

The Heathens begin at home to league new boys London Lions on Saturday (August 9) and Ayres has warned his squad they’ll be taking on a confident team who’ve become used to winning matches.

Ayres said: “It’s a difficult one. We’ll see where we are after batches of games really.

“Most teams in the league have improved so I don’t think we’ll be dark horses anymore. People will look at us and take us a bit more seriously. That’s a challenge.

“It may sound stupid, but the most important thing is to make sure we stay in the league, because every team is a challenge to play. We’ll try to build on what we did last season and hopefully achieve that again. We’ll need luck with injuries as well.

“We’re confident in ourselves that we can compete with anyone in the league but getting a good start will be important.”

On Saturday’s visitors to Wilks Park, he added: “The London Lions came up via the play-offs.

“They’ll be similar to us last year. They’ll be used to winning and they’ll come into the league with nothing to lose.

“They are a well-run club so we’ll have to be at our best to make sure we get off to a good start.”

After attempting to tame the Lions, Flackwell will visit the Rams of Beaconsfield Town on Wednesday evening (August 13).

Marlow have also had a major summer overhaul following their demotion from the Southern League Premier South last season.

They’ll also drop down to their new division a little wounded from what was a bruising campaign. The Blues managed just five wins across 42 league matches as they finished 25 points from safety.

Despite this, they’ll go into the campaign believing they can be up among the front runners.

Manager Mark Bartley believes some of his squad will have ‘muscle memory’ from when they last gained promotion from step 4 via the play-offs in 2024. He’s managed to retain several key players from the past few seasons including Naheer Nawaf, Alex Salmon and Chris Ovenden.

The Blues have also added a raft of talented young players to the group this summer, including Kickie Dzimba, Shamar Moore, Nikolay Popov, Flavio Gyawu-Kyem and Darnell-Joe Luke.

The Blues begin their season away to Barton Rovers on Saturday. Barton finished fourth in the league last season, a few points adrift of third placed Flackwell Heath who got the better of them in their play-off semi-final at Wilks Park.

After visiting Barton, the Blues return to Oak Tree Road on Tuesday evening to take on Aylesbury United (7.45pm kick-off).