"WE'RE going up, we're going up....but not with Andover," was the alleged chant from the Lions' dressing room after they completed the Jewson Wessex League (JWL) league and cup double at Gosport last week.
However, the Andover players are just as much in the dark where they will end up playing next season with club boss Ken Cunningham Brown remaining tight-lipped about where he will be next season.
The only concrete fact is that he and his right-hand man Mick Burford are leaving but KCB said this week that he hoped things would become clearer in the next couple of weeks.
He admitted it was 'a great disappointment' to see the present Andover side breaking up after two memorable seasons in the JWL but he believes he has gone as far as he can with the town club.
"We've won three more trophies, six in two seasons, and that can't be bad," he said. "Several of the players have been asking me what's going to happen next season as they want to stick together and I told them that I hoped to be in a position to discuss it further with them at an end-of-season party we're planning for this coming weekend."
KCB, whose name has been linked with cash-strapped clubs such as Basingstoke, Bath, Weymouth, Salisbury and Bashley, would like to manage at a higher level and wants most of the current Lions squad to go with him.
Prolific striker Andy Forbes and defender Matt Bicknell are the only two contract players Andover have retained for next season but the former Reading YTS duo are the two players most likely to join KCB where ever he ends up next season, with the Lions boss able to accept any offer he likes from his new club.
Most of the other Reading-based players in the squad like Kieron Drake, Paul Freeman, Spencer Walsh, Shaun Dyke and Derek Simpson would all jump at the chance of playing at a higher level, as would the Southampton-based Lloyd Webber. The rest however may not want all the extra travelling and some have already had offers from other clubs with skipper Danny Barker, Dave Asker and Vince Rusher having been linked with JWL rivals Eastleigh while player-coach Matt Crossley is taking up a full-time coaching appointment and striker Paul Odey is retiring.
That leaves only Glen Damen and Alan Kennedy and it has been suggested that the club could ifold up but KCB revealed he didn''t want to see that happen. "The fans may find it hard to believe but no-one is more upset than Mick and I about leaving the club," he said.
KCB added that when he joined Andover the supporters told him that if they started winning things they would get bigger gates. "It's just never happened," he said.
However, KCB is right when he says that Andover as a town is just not interested in supporting football at this level. Apart from a hard core following, most of the support through the gates comes from family and friends of either players or club officials - but Andover is still one of the best supported teams in the JWL.
"We've won six trophies but we've not got the support we should have had," added KCB. " It's been like chasing the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow only to find it goes straight into a muddy field."
The Andover owner/manager thinks that he and Mick Burford deserve a bit of credit for what they have achieved at the club during the past couple of seasons.
"A recent television programme said that it was no good just having a coach as a manager but needed someone with the ability to motivate people and also have man management skills.
"It's not just about bringing in the players but wielding them into a winning side, and keeping them. We've played 39 games since the start of the year and no-one will know how much time and effort Mick and I have put into keeping the players in the right frame of mind since Christmas.
"I don't want to sound conceited but it's been a hell of a job to have done as well as we have we have with a squad of around 17 players."
KCB believes that football has totally changed dramatically at all levels since he first took over at Andover.
"It's now more like all the supermarket giants with the top half dozen having all the money and power ," he said. " Money alone will not bring success, you can have a lot of money and still fail, but the winners will always be those with the most money."
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