New Portchester boss Carter: I’m not going to rip the life out of former club Moneyfields

He has also made it clear he has no intention to 'rip the life' out of his former club by trying to persuade a number of Moneys players to make the move to The Crest Finance Stadium.

Carter established Moneyfields as a Southern League club after being appointed in October 2015 to make that dream a reality.

He guided the club to promotion out of the Wessex League in 2017 - his first full season in charge - and they've remained a step four level team ever since.

Carter is now challenged with becoming the first boss to guide two different Wessex clubs to the Southern League after agreeing to drop down a division.

The Royals boss is likely to at least want some of the squad he assembled at Dover Road to join him in swapping PO3 for PO16 as he plots a promotion push.

However, Carter feels he'll face a struggle to convince anyone to drop down to Wessex League level.

‘Moneyfields is close to my heart and I don’t want to go in there and rip the life out of it,' he said.

‘They’re a Southern League team now, Moneyfields, and them lads want to play Southern League football.

‘Whether I want to or they’re willing to (go to Portchester) is another question.

‘We’ll be looking, not just at Moneyfields, we’ll be looking at lots of sides, maybe looking at their better players and trying to attract them to us and manage and coach them the right way to get us out of the league.'

Carter took the role now to give himself plenty of time to get the club ready for a Wessex League Premier Division title charge next term.

Iit remains unclear, though, when he and assistant Gavin Spurway will be able to get to work on the training pitch with the 'non-elite' season remaining suspended.

Yet Carter has promised to give the current Portchester squad a chance to prove themselves to him before assessing where he might need to strengthen.

He added: ‘I’ve given myself plenty of time to go in, assess and we’ll write down key players that we’re looking to get wherever they be from.

‘We’ve got to go in there, sift through their players and find out which ones are good enough and add to it where we need to.

‘The good thing about us is we’ve got experience in the Southern League and we’ve got local teams in and around us where we know the players that play there.

'We know we’ve got to go and build a good spine there and goalscorers are the key to winning leagues.

'We also know the better players in the Wessex League because we watch games and we’ve got people watching to look to see if they can make the step up into Southern League.

‘They’ll be the sort of players that we’ll be looking for.'