Chichester City’s bosses are having a two-week ‘decompression’ – before starting to think about another tough season ahead of them at step three.

The Oaklands Park staff feel it’s important to have a bit of time out after a successful but gruelling first season in the Isthmian premier.

But in a couple of weeks, they will be back together to plan pre-season and start to look at how they can make 2025-26 as successful – if not more so – as 24-25.

As reported last week, a year after promotion from the south east division, Chi finished sixth in the table and only missed a play-off place on the final day of the season when they lost to Dover – who have gone on to be promoted through winning the knockouts.

The Chichester City players and staff are having a well-earned rest before launching into their second season at step three | Picture: Neil Holmes

Sixth place was way above what most expected of City, who surprised many in football with their promotion last season.

But they know their second season at the higher level could be even more testing, with plenty of opponents who now know all about them.

City don’t even know if they’ll still be in the Isthmian League next season, with the possibility of a sideways move into the Southern League possible under the annual shuffling around of non-league teams.

They remain hopeful of keeping the bulk of their squad together.

Coach Darin Killpartrick: “We’ve not started looking at pre-season and next season but soon will.

"We’re having a bit of decompression for two weeks and then the whole staff will get together and start to put plans together.

"The players are likely to come back to training in late June and we’ll sort out our friendlies – we’ve already got a number of teams keen to play us, which is great.

"We’re all very aware that whatever we have achieved this season, the next one will be really challenging. The league is only going to get more competitive.”

Killpartrick congratulated Burgess Hill Town on their promotion to step three and if City do remain in the Isthmian League, the addition of that Susses derby will be welcome – with Horsham having gone up and Bognor down to reduce the number of West Sussex teams by two.

“Burgess Hill have done incredibly well to win promotion, in the way we did last year, through the play-offs,” he added.

Decompression time for Chichester City – then it will be all systems go

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