WE'VE SCOPES FOR A BEACH PARTY!

DANNY SCOPES remembers the fi rst time he went to Concord Rangers. Back in 2005-06 season he was still playing, his career slowing down, but something about the Beach Boys grabbed him immediately.

- MATT BADCOCK

It begun the lasting connection he’s got with the Essex club. First, a season as captain, then manager with Danny Cowley as his assistant before they became joint-bosses in 2008-09.

Having won the Essex Senior League title and promotion from the Isthmian North, Scopes stepped away from the dug-out for seven years to concentrate on family commitments and his sons’ youth teams, as Cowley and brother Nicky took the club forward.

But Scopes never really left totally. Good friends with chairman Ant Smith and still around the club, when the manager’s chair became vacant at the end of last season there was only one name on the shortlist.

So, after nights like the one we’re talking on following Concord’s extra-time win over Royston to reach the semi-final of the FA Trophy, Scopes gets onto what makes this small club on Canvey Island so special by recalling his first memory.

“My career was not going the right way, the wrong way,” says the Beach Boys boss. “I was getting a bit old, a couple of knee injuries. I came over to Concord to watch a Thames-Side Trophy game. I think they won it 5-2 in extra time.

Big hearts

“I stood on the side. There was probably about 50 people here. I looked at this club and I thought, ‘I like this, this is a bit of me’.

“I signed on that night and played the rest of that season, played the following season and we did OK. The manager left, I got offered the manager’s job and I took it on. I was fortunate Danny Cowley came in as my assistant at the time. We managed to sign Nicky and some other real people. This club had big heart before that and lots of good people. But from that moment we realised this is something special, that this is a real football club, a real family club.