Whitstable Town restarted a reserves team for the 2019-20 season and it was entered into the Andreas Carter Kent County League, where the team was placed in Division 2 Central & East.

A review of the season has been provided by manager Josh Algar:

The reserves had a very good season, I think a lot of people would agree. It was always going to be a challenge with a brand new team and a focus on bringing youngsters through to give them men’s football experience. There was not sole emphasis on the results, as agreed by me, Lloyd and the club, because it was a platform for us to give our players a bridge to the first team. We saw nine academy players play for the reserves and comfortably settle in, not looking out of place. Some of the players really showed their talent in a very competitive league against a different type of opposition than they face when playing on a Wednesday for the academy, so this was great to see. The average age of the players was very young and we also wanted to make sure it was a local side, which we did successfully throughout the season. Some of the results the reserves had were fantastic, with some great victories against the top teams in the division and reaching the final of the Kent Intermediate Cup was something I think a lot of people didn’t expect us to achieve. We beat some good sides along the way in Chatham, Sittingbourne and Cray Valley. It is a real shame we couldn’t play the scheduled final against Lordswood, which would have been a great highlight for the first season, but no one could have predicted the circumstances that we find ourselves in. The safety of everyone comes first however and that is more important than football at this time. It is still undecided if the final will be played before the new season starts.

We had a philosophy of how we wanted to play throughout the season, which was possession based and we tried to stick to this as much as possible, even when things didn’t go our way all of the time. This starts from the academy and we wanted to integrate this within the reserves too. We were fourth in the table when the season stopped which was quite good, although we lost some games that we ought not to have done and this prevented us from finishing higher, but for us it was a pleasing first season with lots of positives to take.

I was supported throughout by my assistant Ian Grieves and it was brilliant to have him with me in my first season as manager of this team. Having someone available with his football coaching experience was of great benefit and we worked really well together as a team. Looking forward to next season, we are wanting to giving more of our academy players an opportunity to progress into the reserves and it’s great that Lloyd has spoken to me about having 3-4 reserve players, who caught his eye, in with the first team for pre-season. We always welcome new players who would like to trial with us for next season and we will hopefully be able to start our pre-season in August.

A summary of the results and a league table can be viewed below.