Cray Wanderers end their February fixtures with their third away Kent derby in a row as they travel to Ashford United.

Kick off at Homelands is 3pm.

Cray will be looking to remain in the automatic promotion places following last Saturday’s home defeat to Carshalton Athletic which made a close race even closer as we soon enter the last two months of the season.  Although Cray have won just once in the last five games they have remained in the promotion places in either 1^st or 2^nd place and the benefit of a vast goal difference of +52 has also helped to keeps the Wands noses ahead of Corinthian Casuals, Carshalton, Walton Casuals and Greenwich Borough.

Last Saturday’s game was an intriguing affair which Cray led early in the second half through Aaron Rhule’s goal in his first game back from his four game suspension but Carshalton turned the game with two excellent strikes in the last twenty minutes.  With eleven games to go in the season Cray need now to go on a good run and hope that their season blip which every team has at some point will pass and they can obtain promotion without the gut wrenching tension of the playoffs.

The Wands will obviously look back to the 17^th of January when Cray beat Ashford United 9-1 in a truly remarkable evening at Hayes Lane but this will be a totally different game and we are likely to see a fired up Nuts n Bolts side.  On that night, Charlie MacDonald (2), Mitchell Nelson, Brandon Scott, Jay Leader, Barney Williams, Ben Mundele and Ralique Lawrence (2) scored with Matt Day replying for Ashford. The Wands will be looking for a repeat of their last away game at Ramsgate on 10^th March when they produced a resolute and determined display to win with goals from Michael Power and Brandon Scott and may have to use those qualities again.

Ashford were promoted to the Bostik South as champions of the SCEFL Premier Division and have found the going rather tough after a difficult start to the campaign.  They did show good signs of a recovery in December and January but are without a win in their last seven league games.  Jason Whitmore’s team lie 22^nd in the table but next season will be managed by Gary Alexander and they could be a serious force in the Bostik South in 2018/19. Their last game took place last Saturday when they lost 1-3 at Thamesmead Town with Dean Grant scoring a consolation goal late in the game after goals from ex-Wands Sol Taiwo and Paul Vines (2) for the home side.

Home form has been fairly decent with wins against Ramsgate (1-0), Guernsey (3-0), Thamesmead Town (4-1), Sittingbourne (3-1), Shoreham (3-0) and Chipstead (3-1).  They drew with East Grinstead Town (1-1), Whyteleafe (1-1) and Hythe Town (3-3) and lost to Carshalton Athletic (0-1), VCD Athletic (2-5), Molesey (0-1), South Park (0-4), Hastings United (1-3), Horsham (1-2) and Corinthian Casuals (0-1).  Away from home Ashford have yet to win picking up points from draws at Sittingbourne, VCD Athletic, Faversham Town and Guernsey.  All their other away games ended in defeats.  Joint top league scorer are Shomari Barnwell and Max Watters with 7 league goals.

This will be a very difficult match for Cray so they will have to be at their very best to beat a side who will be doubly determined after our last league meeting and should be a cracking game on the 3G surface.