Waltham Abbey are gunning for promotion from the Bostik South Central League this season as the team aim to match chairman John Martin’s ambition for the club, according to new assistant manager Ryan Handley.

Handley will join manager Mark Stimson at the Capershotts Stadium as Abbey’s new assistant, after the former Thurrock boss took over from Paul Joynes in June after his resignation.

Abbey finished in 19th place in the Bostik North Division last season after a dismal second half of the campaign, which saw them win just two league games after the turn of the year.

But the West Essex side have been transferred to the newly created Bostik South Central League this season where they will play against the likes of Bracknell Town, Bedfont Sports, Northwood and Uxbridge among others and assistant manager Handley believes that the team are capable of achieving promotion.

He said: “We’re in this new Bostik South Central League which is going to be a new challenge. Nobody knows too much about the teams there.

“The ultimate goal is promotion this year. That is what we will strive to achieve. If we can achieve that then it would be fantastic. The minimum we’d hope for is the play offs. You never know what will happen with the play offs. A few years ago, we got through the North play offs with Thurrock so we have a little bit of experience there.

“But we want to try and get promoted to the Bostik Premier League. John (Martin) the chairman is really ambitious and the club is being really ambitious off the field as well and we’re going to all try and match that on the field.

“I’ve worked with Mark for the last couple of years and he’s very good at what he does. He’s very knowledgeable and his track record in football is also very good. I’m sure we’ll do very well together.”

Stimson and Handley join Abbey after a challenging campaign with Thurrock, which saw them guide the Fleet to a 15th place finish under difficult circumstances behind the scenes, with the club folding at the end of the season.

Also joining the duo at the Abbots will be several former Thurrock players with Reece Morgan, George Winn, James Goode, Joe Christou, Michael Pindy, Charlie Stimson and Ronnie Winn all following their former boss to the Capershotts Stadium.

Handley admitted that last season was a difficult one for the duo given the circumstances at their former club, but he praised the Thurrock players for their achievements during the second half of the campaign.

On their time with Thurrock, Handley said: “It was quite difficult. It’s common knowledge that we found out as a management team what was going to happen in December and that the club was going to fold.

“We took a decision not to inform anybody or the players until at least February or March time. It was very much a case of trying to do the best we can for the rest of the season and then when everybody found out in March, we set the boys the challenge of trying to reach 46 points to try and make sure we stayed up.

“They absolutely smashed it and they were brilliant. They did brilliantly and business was normal, but there were difficult circumstances behind the scenes.”