Saturday sees a first as Cray Wanderers travel to East Grinstead Town for the first time looking to get back to winning ways after six games without a win.
Kick off at the GAC Stadium is 3pm.
The postponement of Wednesday night’s home game with Herne Bay meant Cray can focus on maintaining what has been good away form in 2017 with four wins, two defeats and two draws on the road.
Cray are eleventh in the table after four successive home defeats and without a win in six. The Wands are ten points off the playoff places and it would take a superhuman effort to reach the playoffs now but hope to put a run together in the latter part of the season to finish as high as they can. Luck has gone against Cray quite a bit in recent weeks with injuries, suspensions, Grant Basey’s retirement and seemingly punished for every mistake made. Going forward the team have played well with the partnership of Danny Haynes and Luke Medley looking particularly effective. Lea Dawson was outstanding against Walton Casuals last Saturday and almost dragged Cray back into the game and was a post away from claiming his first hat-trick for the club.
The important thing is for the team and supporters not to be to downcast or despondent and enjoy what is left of the season. Cray have big games coming up at home against South Park, Dorking Wanderers and Greenwich Borough which could yet determine the end of season title and playoff places so there is much to play for.
Cray’s opponents on Saturday, East Grinstead Town have had a difficult few days with the resignation of manager, Matt Longhurst who left to become no 2 at Hastings United. They were managed by caretaker team of Craig Haylor and Ben Burns last Saturday at Herne Bay and were beaten 6-0.
To be fair that was quite an unusual result as their away form has been good for a team in 18th place and have won eight games on their travels (including at Cray in December). Home form hasn’t been quite so good with just four wins at the GAC Stadium (Chipstead, Faversham Town, Molesey and Sittingbourne) and eleven defeats.
Their form all round in 2017 has been mixed and recently had an incredible 7-3 win at Walton Casuals (they lost 7-2 at home to the same side earlier in the season) and a surprise 0-1 home defeat to Guernsey which perhaps shows there inconsistency. The leading scorer is Marcus Elliott with 22 in all competitions.
The only previous league meeting took place on 17th December at Hayes Lane and saw Cray lead 2-0 at half time with goals by Danny Haynes and Brandon Scott before a complete turnaround after the break saw the Wasps win 4-2 with goals by Malachi Robinson, Jake McIntyre and two from Elliott.
East Grinstead Town are a relatively new team to the Isthmian set up having spent most of their existence in the Sussex League and after finishing second in 2013-14 were accepted into the Ryman South for 2014-15 where they finished in the relegation places but were reprieved. Last season they finished 20th and look likely to improve upon that position this year.
There is no reason why this shouldn’t be a terrific game of football with two sides that like to attack and could be well worth a visit,