Wilkins looks forward to making his comeback

VERSATILE Folkestone Invicta striker Craig Wilkins could quite possibly be in line for his first league start of the season this weekend with the visit of Burgess Hill Town, as he returns to fitness following a knee operation, writes Tom Marchant.

Wilkins played the majority of the pre season games and struck up what appeared to be a thriving attacking partnership with James Dryden, something he will be keen to re establish on his return to action.

“I’m hoping to be involved this weekend in some capacity and its been five weeks since the op,” Wilkins, 33, told www.folkestoneinvicta.co.uk.

“I wanted to play as much as I could pre season to keep my fitness up and now I’ve rehabilitated myself it shouldn’t take forever to get back.

“I had a slight tear on my cartilage and it had folded back on itself so when I was opening my knee out to do a wide angled pass I was getting a sharp pain in it. I’ve had two operations on it before back in January and February but I changed my surgeon this time and he is apparently one of the best around and it feels a lot better this time.

“I started doing straight long runs two weeks ago, Saturday I was doing twisting and turning and it has felt alright and I’ve got a bike in my garage so I’m doing stuff most days now. Earlier in the week I was kicking a ball about in the garden just to make sure it’s alright so I’ll be taking part in training this week. It has been frustrating for me as I hate watching!”

Wilkins was one of Neil Cugley’s first summer signings as the Invicta boss overhauled his squad to mount a genuine promotion challenge this season.

“After we won the league at Dover last year, 12 of us all went away to Magaluf and I was out of contract,” explained Wilkins.

“I saw Cugs out there with the Folkestone squad and I was rooming with Jim (Dryden) at the time and he said to have a word with him.

“Dover offered for me to go back pre season to see how my knee was fitness wise but I wanted to get myself sorted as I’ve got a young family and then Cugs rang me up and I knew some of the players who were going to be there and I wanted to come down.”

With Folkestone’s squad all based in Kent, the players are well known to each other from other stages in their careers.

Wilkins played with fellow summer signing Jimmy Jackson in their time at Gravesend & Northfleet, has played against captain Lee Gledhill several times and has played with Nick Humphrey, Matt Bourne, Bryon Walker and Lee Spiller from their spells at Dover.

He said: “When Spillsy got married last year, it was like a who’s who of non league football!”

Deployed in attack during pre season, Wilkins is equally comfortable playing at centre back having played both positions throughout his playing career and is renowned for his aerial ability, having been awarded the ‘concrete head’ nickname.

“That’s what everyone keeps calling me and although I’m not the tallest I’ve got quite a good leap on me and I don’t think centre halves like playing against me as I keep beating them in the air. I seem to get up quite early and hang there and then get a knock on,” said Wilkins.

“I think me and Jim did quite well pre season as obviously because of our time at Dover we know each other so if I’m going up for the ball he usually knows where it’s going. You want Jimmy in the box and I don’t mind doing all the donkey work around him like flicking it on because I know what he’s like in the box.

“I was enjoying playing up front as I haven’t played up there for about two years now. It makes a nice change but to be honest I don’t mind where I play and the back three look quite strong at the minute but if one of them gets injured I can always fill in there. I just want to stay injury free this year, carry on playing as well as I can whether that be setting up goals, scoring goals or keeping them out – I just want to be playing.”

Aside from Folkestone’s first match – defeating promotion hopefuls Worthing 2-1 away – which fell immediately after his op, wilkins has watched all of Invicta’s matches this season as the Seasiders have shot into third place following further victories over Chipstead, Sittingbourne and Dulwich Hamlet.

“It was a good result down there (Worthing) as they’re not a bad side and I was listening to it on Radio Kent when it finally come through. They’ll be there or thereabouts this season, especially with their contacts with Brighton but I think we’ve done well so far.

“You need to be consistent in this league and that’s what happened last year when I was at Dover; we got on a good run and then we were away and hopefully we’ll be up there again this season. We want to finish as high as possible and I’d love to win it again as two years running would be brilliant but there are quite a few good teams in it this year.

“There’s going to be some poor pitches about in January time and if we've got to grind out results we've got to do that. We've got enough big lads in the side like Humps and Bourney and we're capable of handling ourselves. We're a physical side and if we have to go that way we can do that. Obviously we want to play with a bit of style but if we don't get allowed to do that then we’ll have to play ugly as the result is what counts and winning is how we'll get back up.”

Article courtesy of www.folkestoneinvicta.co.uk

Folkestone Invicta v Burgess Hill Town
Ryman League Division One South
Saturday 20^th September 2008
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Buzzlines Stadium, Cheriton Road, Folkestone, Kent CT19 5JU