Special Feature: Now Doswell Is Writing Havant’s Headlines

Paul Doswell also has something else. An unrelenting and totally incurable obsession with football.

In March it all became too much. When you sit down and assess his life, the only question is how it took this long to finally succumb to the exhaustion.

Stepping aside at Sutton United after eleven fantastic years, it was a decision he didn’t take lightly.

“There was a certainly madness attached to it all,” he told us.

“I went to Sutton two weeks after leaving Eastleigh - and I was there for nine years.

“So that’s 20 years of it. Sounds a lot when you say it aloud. But I just got to the stage where I needed that step back. I couldn’t wait until the end of the season.

“It was that I was falling out of love with Sutton. I loved it, absolutely loved it.

“That club will always have a place in my heart. I like to think that I did a lot of positive work there, at the club and in the community.

“The issue was the travelling. I live in Hampshire, so it was two hours there, two hours back - sometimes four times a week.

“When you add in business and family, you have to listen to your body.

“My diabetes was making life a challenge. Everyone knows I am full pelt at everything I do. It was time to take a step back.”

We were all thinking the same thing on April 22.

That was the day Sutton announced Doswell wouldn’t be returning next season. It was also, an hour later, the moment Havant & Waterlooville parted company with the successful Lee Bradbury.

For someone based 20 minutes from Westleigh Park, speculation circulated in record time.

Doswell was announced under a week later. So much for the batteries being re-charged!

“I’ve had a good break, I didn’t want to be out of the game for too long and thankfully this opportunity came up,” he said.

“Kate said she hasn’t seen me this enthused for a long time - and that’s good enough for me!

“What makes it perfect for me is that I was signed on as manager by the person who signed me as a player for the club!

“Derek Pope is still the chairman - it’s brilliant that he is still at the club and still as passionate as he was back then.

“Now I want to bring more success here. That’s the ambition.”

He’s done some impressive business and isn’t finished yet.

Bringing trusty Dean Beckwith, Roarie Deacon, Ross Worner and Nicky Bailey with him from Gander Green Lane, Bath City’s Player of the Season Anthony Straker has also signed.

“I’m really happy with what we’ve done so far but hopefully we will have a few more to announce in the coming weeks,” he added.

“The club were relegated last year and that is clearly disappointing but now this is a new year and hopefully we can be at the right end of the table.”