In a trial game for allowing crowds back into the stadium, Welling United beat Erith and Belvedere in what was dubbed ‘the battle of Park View Road’.
Both teams play their home games there and, for different reasons, were happy to get 90 minutes under their belt. For the Deres it was a chance to play some football while the South Eastern Counties Football League is suspended until at least 26th December.
After the game Erith manager Del Oldfield said “It seems like forever. All we’re ever doing is waiting. Waiting for advice, waiting for guidance, waiting for the league to make decisions. For me it’s getting a little bit tiresome now.
“It’s hard for clubs, managers, coaches to plan for anything because you don’t know what’s going to happen. Clubs are losing a lot of money with paying for training facilities, with putting on games, preparing for games because we’re preparing for a game on Boxing Day but we don’t actually know if we’ll play a game on Boxing Day.”
On the match itself, the final result wasn’t the most important thing. He said “For me, it was a matter for me looking at the starting eleven, or group of fifteen or sixteen, and seeing where they are. They’ve been quite active during the lockdown and it was good to get some minutes back in their legs.”
He continued “It was a chance to have a look at a few players today. We’ve got a few players coming back from injury, one coming back off loan so it was a good opportunity for everyone for different reasons so it was a worthwhile exercise.
“If I’m going to reflect on the game, we made five mistakes and they punished us but you’d expect a team of Welling’s quality to punish you if you make mistakes. Personally, I think that if we play anywhere like that, especially the first half, then we’ll be a problem for a lot of teams in our league.
“They’re four steps higher than us and we knew that they were going to be coming at us with quality all over the pitch. I actually thought in the first half we played really well. Again, two-nil down, two silly mistakes from our point of view, but I thought that apart from the mistakes we played well.
“I don’t think that there was a lot of chances for us, if I’m honest, but again, Welling is a different animal to what we’re used to but what we did, I thought, we did okay.”
Having had the lockdown break, Oldfield admitted that coming back felt strange. “When we went back into training this week we were doing pre-season drills and getting the air back into their lungs and the miles back in their legs.” he said. “One of the things that worries me is the injury situation which is why most of the players only played forty-five minutes today. You have to be sensible and manage it properly.”
Hopefully, there will be further friendlies before the resumption of competitive football. Oldfield confirmed “We’re in talks with various clubs about the opportunities to play over the next couple of Saturdays, maybe the odd midweek game.
“We’re restricted now with the Isthmian stopping. They’re not going to want to be playing games, it will be like throwing away money. The same with step seven teams. They’re not going back until the ninth of January so they are not going to want to play games so all you can really do is play the teams higher up in the National League or we have to play teams from the SCEFL.”
There has since been an announcement that VCD Athletic will host the Deres on Friday 11th December, kick off 19:15.
Picture supplied by Dave Budden.