We're really fired up and looking forward to the season, says Cray Wanderers boss Keith Bird

CRAY WANDERERS manager Keith Bird says he learnt a lot following his club’s relegation last season.

Bird, 47, took over from Ian Jenkins last September but could not prevent the club suffering their second relegation in their history, finishing rock bottom in the Ryman Premier League table with 7 wins, 5 draws and 34 league defeats.

The club were expected to make a return to the Ryman League Division One South, but were switched to the Northern Division instead and will face AFC Sudbury at Hayes Lane on the opening day of the season on Saturday, 9 August.

Bird and his assistant manager Mike Paye left their roles at Conference South side Bromley as reserve team managers to take over at Cray Wanderers.

Bird admitted: “It was difficult.  When you come in you haven’t had a pre-season and also you’re trying to evolve a squad in real time.

“Last year the chairman (Gary Hillman) asked us to come in on a five-year plan really. There was no expectation to stay up last year and we had some challenges and the right players weren’t available to us as much as we’d love to have stayed up there was no expectation to stay up last year.

“It was never about last year. It was about what we intended to do this year and the next three to five years so we’re going to do our very best to try to bounce back and make it up for the fans this year.

“Also you’re trying to sign players and it’s difficult. We approached a lot of players last year, who I think would have made the difference in terms of keeping us up but they either weren’t interested in coming to Cray at that stage or they weren’t available so the problem was at that stage of the season the players tend to be available to you are the players not wanted by the club they were at.

“This season we’ve had an opportunity to go in for players’ right at the very beginning and explain to them the whole vision of what we’re trying to do at Cray Wanderers over the next three to five years.

“There’s a long-term plan and most of the players who are with us should quite rightly play at a higher level or were playing at a high level and came down to play for us, so a lot of players have brought into what we want to do here long-term.”

The Wands have won their opening three pre-season games, beating newly-promoted Ryman Premier League side Peacehaven & Telscombe (3-1) and Tooting & Mitcham United (2-1), before Pat O’Connor’s first half chip defeated Crystal Palace’s under 18’s at Hayes Lane last night.

Bird admitted last night that “winning is important. We want to instill a winning mentality early.

“We’re looking to bounce back at our first attempt back in the Premier Division hopefully this season and we’ll see if we can accomplish that.

“I think getting a winning mentality and getting used to finishing games off.  Last season we struggled with that. There were games we were ahead and we were 1-0 up with a minute to go and conceded a goal in the 94^th minute. 

“What we’ve proven in the last three games really is that we’ve learnt how to win games and that’s really, really important.”

Bird takes his side to Eden Park Avenue to take on cup double winners Beckenham Town on Saturday, promising to give a run-out to the players who didn’t feature last night.

Bird named a 20-man squad last night but Isa Hussein, Gary Beckett, Joshua Silvera and Louis Sprosen didn’t get off the bench.

Bird is relishing the opportunity of having a proper pre-season under his belt as he prepares for a promotion winning campaign.

“You’ve got the benefit of having the squad you want, signing the players you want,” said Bird, who said he has a competitive budget this season.

“All the players we went in for there was only one or two we didn’t get and that was because we had a line that we didn’t get over in terms of what we pay players and that was the only reason why we didn’t sign that couple of players, otherwise they’d happily have signed for us.

“We’ve got a squad that we want to build and importantly we have a pre-season with them and do all the things you do in pre-season so we’re really fired up and looking forward to the season.

Meanwhile, Bird revealed the Max Fitzgerald, Danny Lye  and Martin Dynan will be serving suspensions for the opening league game.

Bird wants to see a change in the rulings when it comes to players serving bans on the first day of the new season.

“The only disappointment with that is as the first eleven takes shape in our minds we’ve got three or four players that would be in that first eleven probably who are not available to us through suspension, unfortunately, which is always one of those harsh things with the FA rules.  They’ve been suspended or sent off with their previous club the previous season and it would be nice if the slate could be wiped clean because they weren’t playing for us, but that’s the rules.”

Visit Cray Wanderers’ website:  www.pitchero.com/clubs/craywands