Although it took two late goals to turn it around, Welling United were good value for their FA Cup First Qualifying Round win at Uxbridge. Manager Lee Martin spoke to Mark Doig after the game.

It was a second consecutive away win for Lee Martin’s team and he spoke about the cup win after the game. “That’s real character from the boys.” he said. “We said last week that we wanted to see a bit of a springboard after Chichester. We didn’t get that on Monday but you saw today that they’re fighting for everything and that last minute winner is exactly what the boys are about.

“I still believe that we were the better team. Their goal came at the wrong time for us, forty-two minutes on the clock. We had to be patient. I don’t think that they got out of their half for large periods of the game.”

Despite difficulties on trains out of Paddington, there was a good turnout of noisy Welling supporters and Martin was full of praise for them. He commented “I thought the fans were superb again today. They travel really well and everyone I spoke to today was positive and that’s what these boys need. The reason we did so well was because you guys (the supporters) were there being positive with encouragement. I want to see all the comments with praise, because praise gets repeated and these boys need that.”

Coming into the game, Uxbridge were unbeaten in their league, a different league to Welling but at the same level, so Martin knew that it was a difficult draw. “They’re a good side.” he said. “They transition very well and their goal epitomised exactly what they try and do. It came from our corner and within eight seconds they’re on the edge of our box and scored. We were the better side, and the best footballing side on the day won the game of football. I thought our boys were superb.”

Whilst Martin is well aware that there are positions in which the team can be improved, he was keen to impress on some of their strengths. “We often talk about what we want to do to improve the squad but let’s look at the boys going out there and doing it.” He said. “Lekan (Majoyegbe) and Logan (Dobbs) have been superb at the back and even James Dyer coming in at left back, it’s not his preferred position, but he runs around like a proper dog in those positions and that’s the character that you want.

“We’ve got the foundations of a really good team. Do we need two or three? Yes. If we can get players in we will. Eze (Ebuzoeme) today, conducted himself superbly. I wanted to get it done last week but it just wasn’t possible but even that one extra body makes a big, big difference.

“We’ve struggled with numbers, and it sounds like excuses but it’s really not. When you’re coming in on Monday (for the Cray Valley PM game) and you’re putting down twelve fit players on a piece of paper while they can make four changes, we haven’t got four players who can come in and do it. Those boys are flogging themselves, they’re running around, they’re doing everything for their manager. We know we need to act.”

He continued “There are players who are on our radar, but we’ll make sure that we keep working with that group of players because there’s a core there. The whole plan is to be a long term thing, to have six to eight players to move into next season with, and give it a good push. We’re not going to be the finished article because we’ve only had them for eight or nine weeks.”

Image courtesy of Keith Gillard