New Herne Bay player-boss Liam Friend faces a balancing act this summer.

Friend is hard at work, assembling his squad ahead of Bay’s 2025/26 Isthmian South East season after a poor 16th-placed finish.

That saw Herne Bay use plenty of youngsters in their 2024/25 season run-in and, while Friend hopes to keep them around, it would be unfair to place too much pressure on those youth-team prospects as they make the step up to senior football.

“We’re looking to keep some [from their 2024/25 first-team squad] around,” he said. “There were some good things going on last year but, at the same time, we weren’t happy with finishing 16th.

“If you keep things exactly the same and expect different results, that’s not really the way forward.

“We also finished with six or seven under-23s being involved at the end of last season. Some of them did very well and played a lot of games.

“In regards to (adding) experience, it doesn’t need to be a player in their late-30s - like the manager is!

“It’s more about players that have experience at the level. That can be a 21-year-old who has played 100 games or a 30-year-old.

“As much as we want the youth-team players to be involved, we have a duty of care to them.

“We want to keep that pathway open but, at the same time, we need to have that balance between that player pathway and being successful on the pitch.”

Bay are on the hunt for a new No.1 after Harley Earle departed for rivals Ashford.

Young Gillingham loanee Taite Holtam, Harry Brooks, Thomas Crump, Josh Bexon, Sam Freeman and Kie Plumley also turned out between the sticks for Bay.

Vastly-experienced defender Friend said: “We conceded far too many goals last year.

“We also, I believe, had seven keepers and that’s not breeding consistency. We need to get a consistent No.1 and he needs to be here for the right reasons.

“That’s not a criticism of any individual - but it’s definitely an area we need to work on.”

While Herne Bay haven’t announced too much in the way of plans ahead of the 2025/26 season as yet, there’s been plenty going on at Winch’s Field. They will start pre-season training on Saturday, June 28.

Friend said: “You’re kind of damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

“If you announce anything and things change, it looks like you don’t know what you’re doing. At the same time, supporters get a bit frustrated if you don’t announce anything.

“I’ve pretty much been at the club two, three or four times a week, so it’s been a different type of pre-season. It’s usually thinking about holidays and maybe a bit of running to keep the beers off the belly.

“I’m enjoying it but it’s definitely an eye-opener into what a manager does.

“We have got seven friendlies booked in, and four of the existing squad retained and six or seven players have agreed to come in. As much as managers go on holiday at this time of year, players, chairmen and media guys are entitled to go on holiday, as well.

“But the club is a forward-thinking club so there’s still plenty of things going on.”

Friend has headed into management after a successful non-league career, in which he captained Folkestone for a large chunk of it under Neil Cugley.

Cugley has been in contact with his former skipper - as have been a number of other managers that Friend has crossed with in his playing career.

Friend, who also has turned out for Margate, Ramsgate and Ashford, said: “Cugs has given me a couple of texts to tell me how useless I’ll be! But, seriously, he has been great.

“I’ve spoken to him and a couple of managers who I have come across, who I actually thought were a bit more ‘Hello mate, how are you doing?’. But they have reached out.

“Steve McKimm (in charge of Cray Valley PM) has been really good so it’s been nice to speak to that manager’s network.”

Herne Bay confirmed their 2025/26 pre-season fixture schedule this week.

With all of the friendlies due to be played at Winch’s Field, they will start against Kennington on Tuesday, July 1, and end against Welling on Tuesday, July 29 - seven days after playing fellow Isthmian Premier team Dartford.

Friend’s Bay team will also have games against Hollands & Blair (Saturday, July 5), Phoenix Sports (Saturday, July 12), Chipstead (Tuesday, July 15), Hythe (Saturday, July 19) and Kingstonian (Saturday, July 26).