Just as they had done in the second round, Welling United needed to win a penalty shoot out to progress in the FA Trophy, this time at the expense of Brackley Town. After the game, Danny Bloor gave his thoughts.
“The objective was getting into the next round and we achieved that.” he said “They’re a very good side. They’re not fourth in the National League North for no reason and when they’re signing players like Jake Jervis, it is a scalp.
“We’re a young evolving group. There wasn’t one player who started today who was at the club last season. It has taken a bit of time but when you see the response, I think it has been massive since Anthony Grant’s come in. He’s given the boys that know how on the pitch, which I think we lacked earlier in the season.”
He continued “His nickname is ‘The General’. It’s like having myself or Ben or Nick or Teddy (the Welling management team) out there. It’s a young group. I thought how good Ike, our right back, was. He’s nineteen. We don’t have too many old-timers and he, Granty, is just what we need.”
Orji and Josh Chambers are both on loan from Gillingham and Bloor was keen to acknowledge the Gills for allowing them to play for Welling. He said: “Many thanks to Andy Hessenthaler at Gillingham for ensuring that these boys come here. We’ve got a good record with loan players, we did so at our previous club.
“If you look at our loan players, Jephte Tanga, Ike Orji, Chambo, they’ve done really well. We don’t have one of the bigger budgets so we’re very grateful for these players, and we give them a good opportunity as well.”
Had supporters not volunteered to work on the pitch in the morning, the game would have had to have been postponed. Bloor said: “This is what this football club is about. I only became manager here on June the twelfth and you can see there are honest, old fashioned people who really care about this club and they went above and beyond.
“This morning there were five of them, headed up by Matt Mein, and without them it wouldn’t have gone on, lets not beat about the bush. There’s an area in front of the away dug-out which isn’t the greatest but they worked really hard to make sure this game went on.”
“The victory was all about the fans. You don’t have a football club without the fans, and the fans have gone home very happy this evening.”
Picture supplied by Dave Budden.