Southern Counties East Premier Division title chasers Sheppey United take on K Sports; Ites boss Ernie Batten up against sons George and Ian

An intriguing Easter Monday battle awaits Sheppey United as boss Ernie Batten takes his side to K Sports - who are now managed by his sons.

Sheppey are in the hunt for the Southern Counties East Premier Division title and Batten senior will be hoping his sons George and Ian - who have both played for The Ites - don’t have a game-plan to wreck those chances.

George and Ian Batten have recently been installed as joint-managers of the K Sports first-team and they host Sheppey on Monday for a 3pm kick-off in what will be their penultimate league outing.

“I will ban them from the house for a few days prior to playing them!” joked Ernie, in the build-up to the game. “I have to make a bit of an enemy of them so I can keep that aggression going for the game. We need to win and it will be very interesting.”

Ernie Batten has himself just passed the 300 mark for games in charge at Sheppey and was presented with a memento by the squad ahead of their Kent Senior Trophy final against Hollands & Blair last Sunday.

“It was incredible for me and I didn’t know anything about it,” said the Ites boss. “I have a 63% success rate, or something like that, which is probably pretty good.

“I pride myself on some of those seasons and we go back to 2016 when we beat Ashford (at the Gallagher in the Kent Senior Trophy) and that season we started from scratch. We didn’t have a side but went on a winning run and got promoted and also beat Ashford, so my first season was probably one of my best I have had. We had no money, we built a squad, got promoted and won a trophy, and that was one of my best achievements, but this could surpass it if we do the lot here.”

A positive start for the new @KSportsFC managers @GeorgeGBatten #onwardsandupwards