Evans relishing role as Worthing United manager

The 29-year-old was appointed Mavericks’ new boss earlier this month and is looking to help the club progress – on and off the pitch – in his time in charge.

Evans, who has played locally for Mile Oak, Lancing, East Preston, Steyning and Shoreham, joined United as player-coach three years ago and took over as under-21 manager last season.

He guided the club’s youngsters to a second-placed finish in the Southern Combination League West Section and oversaw the final three games of Mavericks’ first-team’s season as they stayed up in the SCFL Premier Division.

Evans is excited about taking over as the club’s manager and looking ahead to next season said: “It’s all about progress. What we’d like to do is finish higher, score more goals, concede fewer goals and make some real progress.

“The club is progressing off the pitch and I’m ambitious, so want to do well for the club and will get players in who want to do well for this club. Part of the draw of becoming manager was bringing the young players through, they’ll be ambitious and will want to get into the first team and prove themselves at that level.

“We want to be a club who will give young players their chance. I’m very lucky that I’ve got a good committee and good chairman to work with but also, which is really important to me, I’ll be working with some of the best young players in the county.

“The under-21 team is really important for the club. We’ve got some excellent under-18s who are now too old to play for that age group, so they’ll be part of the under-21s and pushing to try to get into the first team.

“I’m ready for the challenge and will do the best job I can. When I leave this club, I want to make sure it’s in a better position than when I came in.”

Looking back on his time as the club’s under-21 manager, Evans said: “We had a really successful season last year and 14 or 15 of the under-21 players made their first-team debut for the first team, which just shows how strong they were.

“The first team didn’t have the most successful season and it was a bit of a struggle at times but they blooded a lot of good youngsters, which can only stand them in good stead for the future.

“Now I’ll be trying to bring in the right characters and experienced players to help bring on the younger players. I’ll be working hard to get the right people around, in the right environment, so they can flourish.

“I’ve spoken to everybody who was at the club last season and most of them seem pretty keen on staying. But we finished 17th last season, so we’ll be looking to bring in a few players to help us climb the table as well.”

Evans will be assisted by Mark Currier next season, while goalkeeping coach Danny Swietlik and physio Princess Goodwin also remain with the club.

United are looking for a new under-21 manager. Anyone interested can contact chairman Steve Taylor on 07540 691332. The deadline is this weekend.

Don't miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you'll be amongst the first to know what's going on.

1 Make this website your homepage

2 Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/pages/Sport-Sussex3 Follow us on Twitter @SportSussex

4 Register with us by clicking on 'sign in' (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don't miss out!