Liz White Interviews Maidstone Football Club Manager Jay Saunders…
Being the manager of a successful football team must be a hard job to uphold. First of all you need to get the best from your players and then hold them at the top of their game all season. If there was one winning technique, football managers across the land from Sam Allardyce to John Still would be beating down doors to hear about it but Jay Saunders wouldn’t be in that stampede. It seems the Maidstone Football Club manager has already found some managerial magic having taken the club up a division to the Ryman Premier League and remains un-beaten at home this season. I dragged Jay away from his coaching to ask him about the success he seems to be injecting into the club.
Contracted to Gillingham as a Central Midfielder after he left school, Jay stayed there for two years before moving onto Gravesend/Northfleet (Ebbsfleet as they are now) following on from a year out with injury. He played for Margate then back to Gravesend and onto Maidstone. Jay always had his sights on being a football manager but didn’t expect to get the opportunity at such a young age (32). I asked Jay which manager had the most influence on his own managerial style but he didn’t credit any one manager: “I tried to take a bit of inspiration from all of them really, I always wanted to be a manager I learnt a lot from Andy Ford, he was really good with organisation. I played under Liam Daish at Ebbsfleet who was a good motivator and got 100% out of his players and Chris Kinnear always got a good team spirit. I think I’m quite a fair manager and let people know what I expect when they’re signed and let them know if I think they have dropped below standard. I expect people to be at training – they know that – and I’m honest when I sign people. I understand that when you are a part time footballer it’s hard especially if you have family and another job so as long as people aren’t taking the mick then I’m quite approachable and being quite young makes a difference. I’m not an old school manager who acts like a school teacher - not so long ago I was playing.”