Tristan Lewis believes he has found the perfect replacement for Hayes & Yeading United’s departed captain Dean Inman.
We exclusively revealed Inman would skipper Conference South rivals and landlords Maidenhead as part of Alan Devonshire’s new-look team at York Road.
Inman was a fans’ favourite at Hayes & Yeading and was named supporters’ player of the year for the second season running last month, after helping keep the club in the Conference South.
His departure left a major void in the United defence but Lewis has wasted little time plugging the gap with the sizeable frame of 23-year-old Yado Mambo.
Having started his career at Charlton, the big centre-half enjoyed successful loan stints at the likes of AFC Wimbledon and Shrewsbury before being released by the Addicks.
Mambo joined Ebbsfleet in 2014, where he first came to the attention of Lewis, and the United manager believes he has signed a player with huge potential.
“I’ve made the decision to build from the back,” Lewis said after capturing Mambo. “I can read Dean [Inman] quite well and I knew he would be heading off this summer so we became active straight away. Yado was top of our list.
“It wasn’t a total disaster when Dean said he was going.
“I’ve liked him [Mambo] since he was at Ebbsfleet. He had a knee problem in the second half of last season at Chelmsford but he’s working hard over the summer to get fit and he went for rehab at St George’s Park, in Burton.
“If we can get him fit then we’ll have one of the top centre-halves in the league. If we get him right, we’ve done well. Yads [Mambo] is dead keen to get started and he wants to come in and a lead a new set of boys in a new team.
“Adam Everitt will be battling him for the armband and between the two of them, they’ll lead the group. I think we’ve done fantastically well to get him [Mambo] and he already knows Christian Smith.”
Lewis this week moved to offer a deal to loan striker Elliot Benyon, who is out of contract with Torquay this summer.
Hayes & Yeading will need all the firepower they can get with moneybags Margate having won promotion to the Conference South for next season, a team Lewis believes can challenge for the title, with Hayes’ former boss Terry Brown at the helm.
“I was surprised Margate didn’t win their league,” Lewis added. “The money they’ve got down there is incredible and I expect them to go close in our league next season.
“Terry Brown is a Hayes legend, rightly, and I can’t wait to go toe-to-toe with him and Stuart Cash. I’ve got a lot of admiration for what they’ve achieved so congratulations to them. They might be able to give players more money but we can offer them something different here.
“I want to try and build a club and not just a team here. Tony and I are working really hard and we’ve brought the club’s junior teams back in-house. They will be playing back at the ground and we’re all under one roof. It’s one club united.”
