Wands eager to banish last season's play-off disappointment

CRAY WANDERERS reported back to pre-season training tonight, with one thing on their minds - winning promotion at the end of the season, writes Stephen McCartney.

The Wands missed out on promotion into the lucrative Ryman Premier League in heartbreaking fashion last season - losing their play-off final at Tooting & Mitcham United.

Assistant manager Joe Francis, speaking to www.kentishfootball.co.uk after their first training session, revealed the club are keeping an eye on a potential six new faces to spearhead the club’s title winning aspirations.

“A 100% turnout and we had six new players,” said Francis.

“We’ve got two centre forwards, two creative midfield players and two sort of all-round midfield players.

“We had a squad of 22 tonight. We’ll probably (sign them) in our second round of games because we start our games quite early this year (at Holmesdale on Thursday, 10^th July (6:30pm).

“We’ve been inundated with players to join so we’ll be using some early pre-season games to assess them.”

Watching Tooting & Mitcham United seal promotion from Ryman League Division One South - with champions Dover Athletic - in the play-off final hurt the Cray Wanderers camp.

When asked the club’s aspirations for the new season, Francis replied: “To go up automatically, Steve, it’s got to be.

“You always want to improve. We don’t want that play-off lottery again, straight up, that’s not a prediction, that’s an aspiration.

“We’re not saying we’re going up, we just want to avoid that play-off lottery, but there’s a lot of good teams in our League that we respect and it’s going to be another competitive year.”

Francis, with manager Ian Jenkins speaking in the background, revealed the players’ from last year that have re-signed for the club.

Glen Knight, Aaron Day, Colin Luckett, Steve Aris, Ryan Royston, Mark Willy, Danny Chapman, Jamie Kempster, Tyrone Sterling, Tommy Whitnall, Lewis and Jamie Wood, have all put pen to paper.

Strong midfielder Scott Kinch signed from Tonbridge Angels last month and Francis revealed that former Sevenoaks Town striker Tony Atkins has signed from their Kent League neighbours Beckenham Town.

“All our big players have re-signed,” said Francis. “All our back five and our goalkeeper. Definitely speaking, we’re looking solid as a rock. All those were the players that played in that 31 game unbeaten run, where we only conceded 15 or 16 goals.”

Francis, however, expects a big season from Sterling, in his second season with the club following his move from then Kent League side Thamesmead Town.

He said: “Tyrone Sterling has re-signed, who is a very exciting prospect for the club.

“Tony Atkins is a new signing from Beckenham, a top scorer at Beckenham last year.

“We need a goalscorer. Tommy Whitnall, our 19-year-old, young prodigy has signed. We’re looking for big things this year, he’s a quality player, real quality.”

Jenkins and Francis have nine pre-season games to cast their eyes over plenty of players - something that they didn’t have time to do last summer.

“You only get a real feel when you see them in competitive situations,” said Francis.

“We’re training every day because the boys like that and like the conditioning and we’re committed.

“Once the Holmesdale game’s out the way we go down to three training sessions each week.

“We’ve got nine pre-season games because from our analysis from last season’s performance we lost five out of our first eleven games and then we saw we only played four pre-season games last year so the players weren’t up to speed, match fitness and match mentality, so we hit the ground running.

“That’s after listening to our senior players as we take their advice as we respect them.

“It’s good to get that feedback as they can plug the gaps where we may have missed something.”

A lot is expected from Cray Wanderers this season and Francis is one to get over last season’s Imperial Fields disappointment.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re not in the Ryman Premier as it’s really strong,” said Francis.

“We’d like to be part of that (with all those Kent sides) but we’re not.

“Getting over the disappointment of not going up, which was huge. You just want to look forward.

"Once you get back to training, kicking a football and seeing the players, it sorts of takes over really, another season, only another ten more months to go.”

Visit Cray Wanderers website: www.craywands.co.uk