Latest news from Jude Macdonald | February 2026

Sittingbourne arrived at The Saffrons last weekend in fourth place but Town beat them 2-0.

The visitors had Ben Swift sent off after 16 minutes for a foul that led to a penalty from which Alfie Rogers put Town ahead. Rogers netted a second penalty 11 minutes into the second half but the hosts had Aaron Capon sent off late.

We asked Macdonald about the victory – and Town’s progress and hopes.

Jude. tell us about the Sittingbourne game – a great win against a top side, how does that rank in the season’s results? How crucial was the red card and penalty?

It’s a great result and one that we are really proud of, especially given their quality and that they had only lost once with their new management team.

In a weird way, we felt more confident after they beat Three Bridges last week because we knew there might be a chance that they would underestimate us and see it as an easy three points.

That being said, it undoubtedly helps when the opposition have a man sent off after 16 minutes and we are not naive enough to assume that we would have won anyway.

We know how much tougher it would have been, but there were 30 minutes of the game (including stoppage time) that were 11 v 11 and then 10 v 10, and we were comfortable in that time.

That was a first win in seven in the league but after a couple of decent draws did you feel that was coming?

When we went on a bad run in November/December, I was really concerned because we were playing poorly, had poor availability and were getting comfortably beaten.

In this recent run, we played well first half versus Erith, were brilliant v Croydon for 89 minutes, competed well v Ashford, and then got two draws from Merstham and Faversham, where we played well for long periods in those games.

We try to coach performance and not result, so as staff we have actually been quite pleased in recent weeks despite the results. We have picked up 14 points from 24 against our last four opponents (Ashford, Merstham, Faversham and Sittingbourne) this season, which is a decent return against some of the big hitters in our league.

There’s now a nice gap between Town and the bottom four – are you now looking up and seeing how high you might finish?

You always want to be mathematically safe, which we aren’t at the moment, but we are hopefully as good as there now.

It’s especially pleasing with everything that we have dealt with this year in terms of unavailability of staff and players. It arguably feels a bigger achievement staying up this season, than the season we got promoted.

We aren’t the sort of dressing room to think that we have suddenly cracked it after one win and that we are going to go on a crazy run and finish in the top half – there are too many good sides in this league that will bring you back down to earth at any moment.

We would love to try to beat last year’s points tally, but the main focus is the next game.

Who’s stood out recently – and how’s your injury list?

Saturday’s victory came at a bit of a cost, unfortunately for us. Aaron Capon was sent off (although we have appealed this due to the harsh nature of the red card), Billie Clark hurt his hamstring in the warm-up, and Luke Emberson came off with a hamstring injury.

Luke has been absolutely exceptional since he came in and has really helped with turning the tide of our results. If the injury is as bad as we think then that could be his season over, unfortunately.

This weekend brings a trip to Jersey trip – is everyone looking forward to it?

The boys are really looking forward to the weekend away, but I think as staff we are just trying our best to focus on how we can get a result.

Jersey Bulls are in unbelievable form and we need to try to work out how to try to get something. They haven’t lost any of their last 11 league games and have only lost two games at home all season.

Written by: Steve Bone (Sussex World)