Pre-season football returned to Hayes Lane as Cray Wanderers hosted Welling United at the weekend with Wings manager Danny Bloor focusing now on the new season.

After the game, new Welling manager Danny Bloor said: “The only score that’s going to matter is on August the fifth down at Truro. I thought that there were some good signs.”

“I think that we now need to make some decisions about some of the trialists. Lots of positives. I thought we started really well but perhaps lacking that killer punch.”

“We kept the ball, there were some good patterns, but we haven’t worked on anything in training so what we’re going is just natural at the moment. It was a fantastic session. Many thanks to Neil Smith and Tim O’Shea from Cray and we wish them well for the season.

“We’ve got a lot of players here. There’s no secret about that. The trialist who scored the goal, I certainly liked him but we need to be fair to those boys. If we’re not going to have them at Welling United, we need to give them the opportunity to get sorted out at another football club.”

“We need to get our squad assembled. I think I know some decisions. I’ll talk to Ben and the rest of the management team. I’m looking forward to getting on the training ground next Tuesday, Thursday and next Saturday to be ready for Park View Road against Dulwich (Hamlet) on Tuesday July the eighteenth.”

Although he will be releasing players, his door is not closed to others coming in. There will be trialists released by National League clubs who might be a good fit for Welling.

Bloor said: “We just look at every avenue. We look at loan players from Football League clubs but don’t underestimate the young players.”

“We’ve got some good young players. We’re in a very fortunate position.

“When I took this job, I wasn’t aware of how good these young players are. They’re the future and I heard the fans singing ‘he’s one of our own’ about Cam Andrews. We want the right experienced players, which we’re getting, but also we want to integrate our youngsters. It’s important for our long term future.

“We’ll look at all scenarios.” he continued. “We’re a work in progress. The important thing is getting ourselves right. We call them pre-seasons but they’re really practice games.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.