The curtain is brought down on 2016 at Hayes Lane on Saturday as Cray Wanderers face Ramsgate in what should be an exciting Kent Derby.

Kick off is 1pm for this New Year’s Eve Fixture.  This is the first of a quick fire home double header as Chatham Town visit the Lane on Monday, 2^nd January.

With both teams looking to bounce back from Boxing Day defeats and looking to improve league positions this should provide some great football to tie you over before the New Year celebrations in the evening.

Cray come into the game with two straight defeats in what has been a stop start December as the Wands have only played three games during the month.  After a fairly even first half Cray were beaten by a strong Greenwich Borough outfit in the second half and in the end were beaten 1-3.

Although Danny Haynes consecutive games scoring record came to an end (12) he had a very good game on Boxing Day particularly the first half and has 22 goals in league and cup.  Dane Luchford also filled in well at right back and Lee Prescott scored a well taken goal to briefly give Cray hope of a comeback.  We await injury updates on Ben Mundele and Brandon Scott who left the field with a nose injury early in the second half.

Cray are tenth in the table on 39 points and eight points behind the fifth placed side, Carshalton Athletic but Tony Russell’s side are capable as proven on a couple of occasions of putting a decent winning run together so no need at this stage for despondency.

Jim and Danny Ward’s Ramsgate side are 20^th in the table with 25 points and were beaten 0-2 at home to Herne Bay on Boxing Day.  They have three wins on their travels and Aaron Millbank is their leading scorer with 7 goals.

It was an exciting game when the two sides met on 6^th September at Ramsgate, when the game finished 2-2 but could easily have been 5-5.

Karl Dent gave Cray the lead on the half hour but Ramsgate stormed back in the second half and led through goals from Alfie Paxman and Luke Girt   before Lea Dawson levelled.  Ramsgate missed a penalty after that and in the end chances came at both ends.

Ramsgate have won on their last four visits to Hayes Lane in League, Kent Senior Cup and Ryman League Cup games.  The last league meeting came at Hayes Lane in March 2006 with Ramsgate winning 1-0 in their Ryman South promotion season.