On Saturday afternoon, Welling United host Burgess Hill Town in an Isthmian League Premier Division match.
This will be the Wings’ second match at their University of Greenwich sponsored Park View Road stadium this week following their extraordinary run of nine consecutive league and cup away games.
Their homecoming on Tuesday was far from ideal as they went down three-nil against Folkestone Invicta, many people’s bet to finish the season as league champions. That match won’t be season defining, however, interim manager Rod Stringer would have expected more from his team.
Saturday’s visitors Burgess Hill are in fifteenth place in the table on sixteen points from thirteen matches. Their most recent outing was last Saturday when they lost two-nil at home to Canvey Island and they have now gone three league and FA Trophy matches without a win. Away from home their record is reasonable with three wins, three draws and just two losses.
TQ Addy and Greg Cundle remain doubtful through long term injuries, and Stringer will be monitoring knocks that caused Luke Allen and Ruben Shakpoke to be substituted in the first half of the game with Folkestone.
This could turn out to be Stringer’s last game as an advertisement went out for applications for the manager’s post prior to the Folkestone game. After the defeat he said that he had previously told Welling owner Howard Prosser that he should be looking at what manager’s are available. He confirmed “From what I’m hearing, there are some really good candidates. It needs a real fresh start. I didn’t come back here to want to be here until the end of the season.
“I didn’t want to say that at the start because it’s so negative.” he continued. “I just said we’d take each game as it comes. The good thing about doing it this week, is next week you’ve got a free week so it gives whoever the chance to come in. We have got some seven dayers out there as well in one or two areas that are going to be better than what we’ve got but we’ve got to be careful as will the new manager want to do that? I think that there’s one or two areas that we’re desperate for, even before Saturday.
“I’ll do whatever the club wants us to do. I’m not here to try and put myself back in the manager’s role. It’s not something that I looked to do when I took the Royston game. It’s not something that I looked to do now. I’ll be here on Saturday because this is a big game. Saturday’s a massive, massive game for this football club. I’d love to try and get a result then at least I’m handing it over with six points since I got in, rather than three.”
Picture supplied by Chris Zimmerman.