Bridle-Card: "We are improving each week"

By Josh Cole

Goalkeeper, Ben Bridle-Card says he is seeing a week-on-week improvement in the side, despite Wednesday evening’s 3-1 defeat to Fulham FC Xl.

Despite the defeat, the Blues current number one says the experience of playing against Premier League quality was a good one.

“It was a good experience as you don’t normally come up against that kind of opposition every pre-season and you must take that opportunity and enjoy it really, I think it’s a good opportunity for young lads as well who want to push on and see what the levels are like.”

Bridle-Card, 25, gave his thoughts on the Margate performance, especially about a tough opening 30 minutes.

“The first sort of half hour we were a little bit disjointed and gave the ball away in poor areas and probably could’ve kept the ball better and I think against better opposition you get punished.”

Looking overall at pre-season so far, Bridle-Card admits he has seen a continued improvement after each game. “I think we’ve shown progress, week by week really, I think if you compare the Glebe game, we probably didn’t come out the sharpest and then we grew into that game, took it (the performance from the Glebe game) into Faversham and played some good football, and Dover was a great result against higher opposition which is probably more of a realistic test than what tonight (Fulham XI) is maybe and we came out on top.”

The ‘keeper says working under new Manager Andy Drury is different than Jay Saunders, but says he is loving life at Hartsdown Park.. “100% I've enjoyed it, it’s a slightly different style of play to what we were used to last season, I think he wants us to play (keep possession) a little bit more, we tried to play (build out from the back) as much as we could last year but he’s really drilled bravery on the ball into us in high pressure areas, myself included and play attractive football and I think if you look at pre-season, we have really knocked the ball about well and it’s exciting to be honest and I think we can definitely hold our own in the league this year and there’s no reason why we can’t push for promotion.”

Ben was asked about the prospect of former Manager Jay Saunders returning to Hartsdown park and other former ‘Gate players who joined him up at Tonbridge Angels. “I think it always does (add a little bit of spice to the game) when you know players from the opposition, and I think non-league football is such a small world that you always end up playing against someone you know, I think Jay will want to get a result against us and the club ourselves will want to get a result against our former manager and players but it should be a good day.”

Ben Bridle-Card is sponsored this season by Norman Stanley (Home), and Rick Simmons (Away).

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