Ex-Crystal Palace, Millwall and Gillingham star on a mission to lift Ramsgate FC after disappointing end to campaign

Former Wales international Steve Lovell will use his vast managerial experience across many levels to help guide Ramsgate to Step 3 and he revealed, “the chairman’s ambition to take the club further was the big thing for me”.

That will have to be next season, though, for the Rams and the 61-year-old, as the club have fallen short this term – losing six matches on the spin to torpedo their chances of staying in the play-off places they occupied for the majority of the campaign.

On Monday (April 18), they won again at last to break that spell, beating Whitstable Town 6-1 in Lovell’s third match in charge.

Lovell enjoyed a wonderful playing career as a prolific striker with Crystal Palace and more notably Millwall and Gillingham while later he also won the FA Vase with Deal Town in 2000 in the last final at the old Wembley Stadium.

His managerial career has included being in charge of the Gills along with other Kent clubs such as Ashford United, Sittingbourne, Hastings United, Bromley and Welling, so his experience will be invaluable to a young Ramsgate outfit.

“It’s been good, I’ve enjoyed it,” said Lovell of his new club. “It’s hard going in to a club where the players aren’t ones you’ve brought in but I’m used to that. With the clubs you go into, you do that all the time. It’s a matter of trying to find out about them very quickly.”

Lovell will bring his knowledge of the game to Southwood and added: “That’s the thing with football, with managing, you have your own plans and structures, the way you do things and I think you take them wherever you go. It’s just you have different players to work with and different levels and different abilities. But it’s the same effort, it’s the same things that you do and the same