Non-League and Academy football writer

Connor French recently signed for Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division side Bearsted FC. However, the former Millwall academy player, from Kennington, last season played for step 6 side Tower Hamlets FC, impressing on the pitch, as well as being an assistant manager at the club. An experienced centre-forward in non-League football, who has played higher up in non-League before, I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Connor about some of his memories in the game, so far.

What are some of your earliest footballing memories?

Connor: My earliest footballing memories would be playing for Waterloo FC. We didn’t lose a game for about three years, and a lot of the players from that Sunday league side went on to sign for different professional club’s academy set-ups. A couple of players went to Chelsea, and then I went to Millwall. But they would be my earliest memories of football.

Could you talk me through a bit of your background in football, up until signing for your present club – Bearsted FC?

Connor: I went from Waterloo to Millwall, and I was there as a scholar for two years, and that was good, but also challenging at the same time. It was also harder back then, because from youth team football you had to be ready for first team football, and there were no reserve sides or anything like that, after you’d left the youth team. So it was either being in the youth team or going to the first team, but it was a good experience. From Millwall I went to Concord Rangers, when Danny Cowley was there, and he’s someone who’s gone on to do great things. After that I went to AFC Croydon Athletic, and then all in that same season I then went to Tooting & Mitcham, as non-League football was very new for me at the time.

After joining Tooting & Mitcham in January, we actually got relegated at the end of that season, even though we had a very good side. So from there, I kind of bounced from club to club. I did go to Dulwich Hamlet, and I won promotion with them, which was really good. Then in the Conference South, I signed for Farnborough, after being at Walton Casuals for a bit, and I was also at a really good club, in Three Bridges. Not long before joining Tower Hamlets, last season, I was with Sutton Common Rovers for a bit, but at that time I’d fallen out of love with football and put on a lot of weight, and I just didn’t really like football a lot at that stage. 

My time at Sutton Common Rovers was very stop and start, and I just didn’t enjoy my football at that time, and then after rejoining Tooting & Mitcham before Covid, I didn’t actually play football for a while.

How did you find that transition from playing academy football with Millwall, to then going into non-League football?

Connor: I’d always been a very strong footballer, even when I was a young player, but going into non-League football to begin with, I was relying a lot on just that. It was Danny Cowley who coached/taught me how to play the game differently. I was trained so much at Millwall, to just hold the ball up, but Danny Cowley helped me to have more variety to my game, such as running in behind and bending my runs, etc.  He helped me a lot as a player.

As a youngster were there any players who you used to look up to/try and model your game around?

Connor: Wayne Rooney was someone who I thought was an unbelievable player, and then there was Didier Drogba and Ronaldo, who I thought were great players, as well. So they were the kind of strikers who I thought were serious players. Around the time when I was growing up at Millwall, there were strikers like Steve Morrison and Neil Harris, who were good players to watch.

Have you had any big coaching influences in football?

Connor: I’ve had quite a lot of coaches who’ve helped me out in football. At Waterloo FC, Arnold Reynolds taught me everything that I needed to know about football at that age. From there Scott Fitzgerald (my youth team manager at Millwall) was a big influence on me, and with him I saw the good and the bad sides of football, which looking back now, was a good thing. Gavin Rose and Danny Cowley are two other managers who really standout to me, as coaches who had a big influence on me.

What have been some of your standout memories of your footballing journey, so far?

Connor: Winning promotion with Dulwich Hamlet is definitely up there, as was going to Farnborough, when they were in the Conference South. Because it taught me all sides of football, and I really enjoyed my time there.

How did you find last season (2023/24) with Tower Hamlets FC, where you combined your playing role with being an assistant manager?

Connor: I did enjoy it, but it was also very hard and I had to get used to things quickly, with the games coming thick and fast. I had to adjust and control how I speak as a coach, because I can get very, very hot headed when we lose as a team, but I did enjoy every minute of time at Tower Hamlets.

Could you talk me through some of your memories of being with Tower Hamlets FC, last season?

Connor: It started off badly, and I think that we lost our first seven games, which didn’t help. We had to build the team and we had a short pre-season, as well. That game towards the end of last season, against Clapton Community, stood out to me. Because I saw a real change in the players, but looking back it’s quite hard, because we didn’t do as well as we’d hoped to. Individually we had some very good players, but we only trained about six times all season, and three of those training sessions were on five-a-side pitches. So we didn’t really train all season, and in one month we didn’t see the players for about 17 days, because of games getting postponed. And if you don’t train then you’re not going to improve, and so we were going off individual brilliance in matches, rather than a well worked pattern of play or set-piece.

We struggled as a team last season, because we would only meet up on match days. We as coaches were trying to coach the players in matches.

For those who haven’t seen you play, how would you describe yourself as a centre-forward? 

Connor: Right now I’m very good with my hold-up play, and at bringing other players into the game. My movement is good, and even though I don’t really get in behind the defence anymore, I do naturally run in behind as that’s how I’ve always played the game. I can score goals, I’m strong and every now and then I score a memorable goal.

What are some of your thoughts/hopes ahead of next season (2024/25), with Bearsted FC?

Connor: I looked at the league table before I went to Bearsted, and I noticed that they’d drawn maybe nine matches last season, which is quite a lot of games to draw. But they didn’t really concede a lot of goals, and I know that their striker got quite a lot of goals for them last season, but I think that they need a couple more goals overall, to get them into the play-offs. I spoke to other people about Bearsted FC, and I’d heard nothing but good feedback about them.