FA Trophy Special: Ramsgate to sit down with Bromley to discuss May's future

JAY MAY has been given permission to play in Ramsgate’s FA Carlsberg Trophy tie against his former side, Tonbridge Angels today, writes Stephen McCartney.

The striker, who left Dartford to sign for Blue Square South side Bromley for an undisclosed fee in pre-season, is currently on loan from the Hayes Lane club, and assistant manager Danny Ward, speaking to www.kentishfootball.co.uk this morning, believes the club can secure the striker’s services at Southwood Stadium soon.

“Jay May is available today,” said Danny Ward. “He’s made a difference, a big target man, getting on the end of things. He’s a nice lad, training was very good Thursday, we worked on a few things for today’s match.

“Everyone’s counting the pennies at the moment, every club and that goes all the way up. We’ve been in discussions with Mark Goldberg at Bromley and we’ll sit down on Sunday and Monday and decide where we’ll go from there.

“You only have to look at teams around us and crowds are down everywhere and money is getting tight.”

What is for certain, five goals are expected at Longmead Stadium today, for this FA Carlsberg Trophy first qualifying round tie against bogey side Tonbridge Angels.

In recent times, the Angels have normally defeated the Rams 3-2, but Ward wants his side’s fortunes to change today.

“They’re one of our bogey sides,” he said. “We haven’t had the bounce off the ball over the last couple of years. Anything that has gone wrong has gone wrong. We’ve had a game abandoned when we were winning and such things.

“We’ll go there, obviously it’s not a Ryman (League) game so we go there wanting to win to get into the next round of the Trophy.

“Our FA Trophy and FA Cup form over the last couple off years hasn’t been very good.”

Everybody at Southwood Stadium are concerned with their position off fifth-bottom in the Ryman Premier League table - just one point above the drop zone.

But the assistant boss is confident a win today will spark a revival at the club.

“We don’t deserve to be down there,” he said. “We’ve played better football this year than any other year.

“We’re in a bit of a transitional period at the moment. Players have moved onto pastures new, but we’ll be alright.

“Against Carshalton (which we lost 2-1 in midweek), we had 16 attempts (on goal), ten of them were on target. There’s nothing to be drastically worried about. One week we’ll give someone a hiding and then we’ll be away.

“We’ve got some smashing players, competition for places. There’s nothing to panic about at the moment. If anything, we might be a bit too young, that’s all, that will come.”

Captain, Warren Schulz (knee), Simon Pettit (shin), Aaron Firth (knee) have all been ruled out and goalkeeper Jack Delo is struggling with a knee injury.

www.kentishfootball.co.uk will be covering this game.

Visit Ramsgate’s website:  www.ramsgate-fc.co.uk

Tonbridge Angels v Ramsgate
FA Carlsberg Trophy First Qualifying Round
Saturday 18^th October 2008
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Betterview Longmead Stadium, Darenth Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent TN10 3JW