STREVS STRIVES FOR MORE TIME

WHAT happens when a manager no longer has a team to manage?

- By Matt Badcock

For Ben Strevens, that job title is not one he is totally wedded to. It's one he also ponders whether he will want again and perhaps it's too early to say.

It's been a little over two months since Strevens left Dagenham & Redbridge.

Despite taking the Daggers to the FA Cup third round win wins over League Two promotion-chasers Crewe and AFC Wimbledon along the way, defeat to Braintree Town on Boxing Day saw the axe fall.

Since then he's been watching his boys, Sam and Oli, play football while waiting for the right opportunity. Whether that's in academy football, on a coaching staff, as a coach educator, he knows he wants to stay in the game that has given him so much.

"When I lost my job at Eastleigh I was really tired," Strevens tells The NLP. "It was three-and-a-half years where I'd gone from being a player to a coach to a manager.

"We had to rebuild the squad two or three times with the players we lost-and some good ones at that-so I felt like I needed the break.

"But I haven't felt that way with Dagenham. Very rare do you get another opportunity again straightaway. So the last couple of months have been tough, if I am honest, because I don't want to not be working.

Apology