No pressure from club – but winning is aim of new Hastings United manager
Ronnie Dolan says Hastings United’s bosses are not putting him under pressure to lead them to the league title – but insists winning games is all that’s on his mind.
Dolan has taken over at The Pilot Field in his first job in management after two seasons in which United have been near the bottom of the Isthmian Premier and Isthmian South East divisions.
The new boss, backed by assistants Sammy Adams and Trevor McCreadie, aims to reverse that trend.
Dolan told us: “There's no real pressure from the club to go and win anything – I don’t think there can be after the past couple of seasons – but for me, that's not in my mind. I’ve never been at a club where I’m a mid-table player or a relegation fighter.
"In my mind, I’m a winner, I want to win everything, wherever I’m playing – even if it’s with the kids in the garden! It’s the same with Sammy and Trev.
"Trev's just been promoted with Peacehaven and I'm off the back of winning the league with Folkestone – it's such a good feeling. That's why I still want to do it.
"I'm not naïve, it's my first managing job and I'm going to see how it goes, one game at a time.
"The idea is to win as many games as we can and hope that we can come out on top of where we need to be.
"I just want to see my team competing every week, fighting for everything, fighting for each other and having a good go at it.
"After the two seasons that they've had, with a relegation and finishing fifth or sixth from bottom, as a club, we need a reset. And we're here to do that.
"We’re local lads, we know what's expected, we know what players we want, we know what players we need to bring in for the way we want to play and the way we want to do things.
"We’ve been involved in teams, all of us, that have developed winning mentalities. If we can just go about our business and we just tick off games, game by game, and we are winning, then happy days."
One player who won’t be part of that is striker Sonny Walsh, who has gone back to Eastbourne Town just weeks after signing for Hastings.
Meanwhile Hastings have been drawn to visit Kingstonian in the FA Cup extra preliminary round on Saturday, August 8.