The Sparks are hoping to make two new signings this week - both of which Gallagher has known for decades

They have never finished higher than eighth place at Step 4 in their 129 year history, but new manager Josh Gallagher sees no reason why South Park can’t be title contenders this season.

Gallagher took the reins at the Reigate club in early September with them sitting in 13th place in the Isthmian League South East Division, with four points from their three games played.

Since then they have beaten Margate, Steyning Town, Cray Valley PM, Broadbridge Heath and Hastings United while they drew with Erith Town and Faversham Town and, most recently, lost 2-1 to Whitstable Town on Saturday.

It has propelled the Whitehall Lane outfit to the upper echelons of Step 4 and, given the majority of the teams they have faced are sitting in the top half of the table themselves, led to them being tipped as dark horses for promotion.

And Gallagher doesn’t believe the talk is out of place.

“I’m always quite ambitious,” the 33-year-old reasoned. “Even when I first took over, I would have said it’s possible, but it’d be a long way to get there and we would have been extremely lucky.

“There’s ambition at the club and the potential and everything to go with it. The group of players there I felt were underachieving so there was always a possibility that if we hit the ground running and the boys responded right to the way, to me coming in that it could be really, really positive.

“Obviously you see the so-called ‘new manager bounce’ often in football, and it’s sort of worked out like that. But I think within the group, there’s a belief that it is more than just that. We know with what we’ve got, we are more than capable of competing. We’ve played against a lot of the teams who are in the play-off positions and I felt that we’ve picked up some really good results and performed really well consistently.

“It is still early days and I’m confident that we’re only going to improve. We’re only going to get better hopefully. Yes, there will be bad days, but we’re looking at it thinking we’re more than capable of competing against the top teams in this division, so why can’t we be title contenders? Why can’t we be play-off chasers?

“I’m not saying we’re going to go and win the league because we know how difficult that would be but I think we can definitely be competing towards it, and if not, definitely a play-off place and that’s sort of what we’re looking at.”

For the first months of his reign, Gallagher didn’t make a signing but this month he’s brought in Yahaya Kamara and Sam Tutt, and he’s hoping to have another two over the line in time for Tuesday’s away game at Sheppey United.

“Sam Tutt was previously at the club and he knows the boys extremely well, and knows exactly how we want to do things,” Gallagher explained. “But the team is playing well at the moment, so his opportunities have been limited and that’s the same with Yahaya.

“We’re looking at a couple more that we’re going to bring in and I really think that these are statement signings. It’s taken a while to bring one of them in. The other one was a lot easier than the other, but they are two people that are very close to me personally and I feel that they’re really going to add a lot of experience, leadership, quality and an understanding to how we want to do things.

“Jordan Gallagher, my cousin, is the first and it’s taken a while to pull him away from Kingstonian. We know the qualities he brings and how good he is at this level.

“And the other is Paris Hamilton-Downes, who I went to school with so I’ve known him for about 20 years. He was Carshalton Athletic captain in Step 3 and has most recently been playing at Merstham.

“He can play in midfield or defence and brings a lot of leadership and experience to the side, because I don’t think people realise what a young team we are.

“I know we’ve got a few players that bring the average age right up like Danny [Bracken], JJ [O’Sullivan] and [Dan] Moody but our three strikers are all under 25 and, apart from JJ, the defence is all very young too.”