Westfield looking up for new term

The village club will kick-off the 2012/13 Sussex County League Division Two campaign with a home game against Oakwood on Saturday.

Joint manager Tony Harris said: “We want to be challenging towards the top end rather than the bottom and with the players we’ve got, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be. As a club, historically we’ve always been in the top half of the league and that’s what we want to get back to.”

Westfield achieved top half finishes during their first 10 seasons in senior football, but they’ve dropped below halfway in each of the last three campaigns.

Last season they became embroiled in a relegation scrap after a troubled autumn, but a strong finish moved them up to 12th, albeit only six points above the bottom two.

“We want to get away from where we were last year,” continued Harris. “We’re a lot fitter than we were last year and we’re a lot more organised than we were last year. There’s some players there that county one sides are sniffing around and provided we can keep everyone available, I’ve no doubt we’ll go well this year.”

Westfield have brought in four players over the summer, including former Hastings United defender Nathan Russell, with only a couple moving elsewhere.

Joe Barham, who began last season at Westfield before spending much of it with Hastings, has put pen to paper and played in the 1-1 friendly draw away to fellow Division Two side Mile Oak last weekend.

See tomorrow’s Hastings and Rye/Battle Observers for the full article.