2007/2008 Season

The new man in charge

The 2007/2008 season saw Mark Nash's first season in charge of Margate, a board room struggle and the club on the first step towards becoming an established semi-professional club.

In the previous season, Chelsea had lost to Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League but coasted to the Premiership title, Arsenal stormed the UEFA Cup and Portsmouth won the FA Cup.

Preseason

After the off-season incidents between Chairman Josh Holmes and former manager Robin Trott, new manager Mark Nash Semi-professional playing staff was thin on the ground. Not only did Nash not have any semi-pro playing staff he was also without the coaching staff, all had left in protest to Josh Holmes' management of the Club.

Once the chairman had Nash installed local media sources already announced that while Nash would be fighting to keep the club in the Conference South, Josh Holmes was already looking to sell his controlling share of the club to life long Margate fan Doug Platt who held a minority share of the club.

Meanwhile back in the transfer market, Nash immediately went out to build a semi-professional squad. In the largest recruitment drive seen in at Hartsdown Park numerous players joined the club either on a 12 month contract or a trial.

Preseason fixtures themselves were a mixed affair. Opening game against Denis Wise's Swindon saw a 5-0 defeat at home, though Margate managed to bounce back with a 3-0 and then a 1-0 results at home against Morecambe and Altrincham respectively. Then two away fixtures to Stalybride as well as Moor Green resulted in a 3-1 and then a 2-0 win.

Nash also resurrected the Invicta Cup in which Margate (being the highest placed team in the english league structure) hosted local kent teams. 2007/2008 Invicta Cup saw Dover, Ramsgate and Folkestone invited. Unfortunately Margate ended up bottom of their own tournament.

Though even at this early stage the squad was showing promise and Nash's comments to the local media were confident that the side would remain in the Conference South.

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August to December

For Margate the Conference South kicked off with a 1-0 win over Eastleigh, which was checked with a 0-1 loss to Tamworth. The team then managed a 2-2 draw away to the early league leaders and promotion contenders Carshalton Athletic. The team then showed some excellent form for the rest of August by putting together a 4 game winning streak, most notably the 4-1 thrashing of AFC Wimbledon away from home.

During September Margate's away form was patchy, even losing 1-0 to Fisher the league's lowest team, though home form was strong. Two good FA Cup qualifying rounds of a 5-0 hammering of Slough and then a 2-0 victory against Havant & Waterlooville was sandwiched between a strange 1-2 defeat to Eastbourne.

A few additional signings were made to bolster the squad for the challenges ahead, Margate's best signing in the first half of the season was a young Goalkeeper Matthew Bulman whose record up to the 21st of December 2007 was 5 games played and only 2 goals conceeded. Nash had high expectations for this youngster who was already the 1st choice keeper but would Nash be proved correct?

Results were strong though in October/November Margate's cup form was terrible, a 0-5 defeat to bottom of the Conference National Grays really outlined the gap of talent between the newly promoted Conference South side and an established if somewhat underacheving Conference National side. Plus being dumped out by Scarborough (narrowly) who themselves were the in-form Conference North side allowed Margate to concentrate entirely on their league position.

This had a postive benefit as Margate went on an unbeaten run drawing with the then top of the table Crawly and beating once again the top side 2-1 when they took on Thurrock a month later. After 19 games played this left Margate top of the Conference South.

League Table 21/12/07

21st December 2007

Squad 21/12/07

21st December 2007