Arrangements are in place to get our ground up to standard, says Cray Valley boss Steve Chapman

CRAY VALLEY (PAPER MILLS) manager Steve Chapman has confirmed the club will retain their Kent Hurlimann Football League status next season.


The club were promoted into the Kent League last summer despite finishing in third place in the Kent County League – but Chapman has confirmed today that the club will install a new stand and floodlights in time at their Badgers Sports Ground at Middle Park Avenue in Eltham.

Chapman said: “I spoke to the president the other day, no problems at all.  Arrangements are in place for the stand and floodlights to go up within the required timescale.

“There’s been a bit of speculation recently that it wouldn’t get done.  That’s just other officials’ and other managers’ scaremongering I would imagine, but no problems whatsoever.

“We’ll be back in the Kent League next year and hopefully even stronger with better facilities that we’ve got now.”

When asked whether homeless club Greenwich Borough could return to their Eltham roots with a groundsharing deal, Chapman replied, “I think there’s been discussions with the various committees but I don’t think it’s come to anything. 

“We’ve been approached by quite a few clubs locally to groundshare with us but now I’ve stepped away from the secretarial role I leave that very much to the secretarial team to sort that out.”

Cray Valley’s trip to Corinthian was called off yesterday, due to the freezing conditions that has wiped out the entire Kent footballing programme today.

Chapman opted to watch Manchester United’s 2-1 win over fierce rivals Liverpool in the clubhouse at Badgers.

“It’s not so bad today because as we obviously knew the game was off yesterday,” said Chapman.

“It just spoils players, managers and supporters doesn’t it?  If you don’t know if your game is on or off at least you can arrange other things you never get round to get doing if the games off.

“It’s a day off for the players!  We train on a training area on the ground and on an Astroturf at Eltham Green and both surfaces weren’t fit for purpose this week so we haven’t trained at all.

“If I let them know earlier enough a number of my players go down the gym, which is keeping them a little bit fit, obviously not the same as match fitness.  It’s the same for every team I would imagine.  I wouldn’t think many teams have trained this week, but over the Christmas break we trained really hard.  It was like pre-season training so we got our fitness back up so I’m not too worried about fitness.  Let’s hope it doesn’t go on for too long though!”

Chapman reflected on the club’s first Kent League campaign, which sees them lie in eleventh place (out of sixteen teams) with 19 points (five wins and four draws) from 20 games.

“I think speaking on behalf of the club we’re very pleased with how it’s gone,” he said.

“We said very early days’ we’re looking to consolidate this year and I think we’ve done that.

“I’ve set the team a target of 30 points.  I’d be disappointed if we don’t get ten points from ten games but generally I think the club’s well pleased.”

Chapman added: “Yes, it’s fair to say if you look at the number of players and who we’ve had this season we’ve had a turnaround in personnel shall we say and many thanks to those players to establish ourselves to helping us out.

“We’ve found our feet and we’re playing very good football.  We were very unlucky not to beat Greenwich Borough the other day.  We had most of the game but we just couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net.

“That really is the story of our season.  We’re consolidating, we’re defending well, but we can’t finish teams off when we have large periods of possession.”

The postponed trip to Gay Dawn Farm has been swiftly re-arranged for next Saturday and looking forward to the game against Corinthian, Chapman said: “I look at Corinthian as the same set up as ourselves, not big budgets, a good honest team.

“We beat them very narrowly earlier in the season and I think we’ll be looking to get at least a point down there, if not three.  I’m not taking it for granted.  We’ll be very solid against them.

“They’ve done very well in the Cups this year with a semi-final and they’ve got some good players.”

Corinthian  v  Cray Valley (Paper Mills)
Kent Hurlimann Football League
Saturday 18^th February 2012
Kick Off 2:30pm
At Gay Dawn Farm, Valley Road, Longfield, Kent DA3 8LY