Glover hopes Bennett will be the first of many to commit to Poppies

While the full focus is currently on trying to ensure the club’s safety in the Vanarama National League North, the first signs of looking to the future appeared last week when the Poppies revealed striker Sam Bennett has now signed a contract which will keep him at Latimer Park for the remainder of the current campaign as well as next season.

Glover confirmed he is hoping more members of the current squad will follow suit in the forthcoming weeks with the aim being to make sure the Poppies aren’t scrambling around for players during the summer.

Glover was left with almost an empty squad list shortly after being appointed last year as the majority of last season’s squad departed.

And he is keen to make sure that sort of situation doesn’t happen again.

“Sam is the first and I think we will be looking to take up options on at least four others over the next fortnight,” Glover said.

“We want to build. We don’t want to be caught out like we were last summer when we came in and had no-one at all signed.

“We’d like to have a nucleus of six to eight players who know the league in place.

“Sam has done very well and deserves the contract.

“I’d like to think that if we carry on working with him, we can improve him and he might have a chance of going up another level or two in a year or 18 months.

“At the moment, he is like a lot of the lads in that he’s a work in progress. But he’s a good lad for us to have. He works hard and I think the fans like him.”

Bennett arrived at Kettering last summer having previously been with Wisbech Town at Step 4.

And, like the team as a whole, the frontman seems to have grown into the campaign at Latimer Park, hitting five goals so far.

“I have been talking to the gaffer and the subject came up and as soon as the offer came in I took it straight away,” Bennett said.

“I am really happy to get it done and I am looking forward to being here for the rest of this season and the next one.

“I came up from a couple of divisions below so to have earned a contract is great for me.

“But I am just concentrating on this season and the challenge for us is to make sure we are in this division next season.

“The last couple of weeks have shown we are capable of doing that and that we are fighting for it.”