Hopes of building on their two consecutive victories were scuppered for Welling United when they hosted Chelmsford City.

One change was enforced with Taofiq Olomowewe being suspended and Warren Feeney was delighted to have been able to bring back Jamie Sendles-White who had been very important in Welling’s escape from relegation last season.

“I’ve been speaking to Jamie about it, and he was on my list to retain.” Explained Feeney.

“He had a few things that he needed to sort out but we got him eventually over the line. I thought he was superb today. He hasn’t played in a while but you couldn’t tell. He reads the game, he is experienced, he will be a good signing for us.”

On to the match itself, and Feeney felt that his team deserved better. “We had one cleared off the line in the first half, and hit the crossbar with a free kick.” he said. “To be honest, the second half I could only see one winning it. I’m very, very, extremely disappointed with the goals we conceded today. The first one, we shouldn’t have got done by a long ball. The second one, I’d like to see it again. They’re saying that the referee made the signal for the sub and the linesman had his flag up, yes we’ve got to play to the whistle, but it’s a strange one.”

Apart from the controversy over the second goal, he was flabbergasted that Welling weren’t awarded a penalty in the first half when Chelmsford centre-half Dave Winfield punched away a corner. He said “The referee admitted it about the penalty in the first half, but I’m disappointed as I could only see one winner today. I think everyone in the ground could see that it was a handball. The referee said he didn’t see it.”

Questioned about whether Welling were guilty of playing it long too much, Feeney said “If you look at it, who’s had the best chances in the game today? There’s no right way or wrong way of winning a football game. If you’ve got two strikers like that, you’ve got to give them the opportunity. They’re not long balls, they’re down the channels and I think we got joy out of picking up second balls. They are a hard team to play against. They’re on merit where they are. Could you see them going on to win the game today? I couldn’t.”

Both of the goals that Welling conceded could have been defended better. Feeney continued “Defenders have got to take pride in defending, and we had some good performances today, but the two goals that we conceded were absolutely poor from us. I can take getting beaten if the team is better than us but I felt that today there was only going to be one winner. We were on top of the second half, we had the energy and we’ve come away losing the game.”

There was also the strange sight of Ade Azeez and Stefan Payne playing ‘Rock, paper, scissors’ to decide who took a penalty at one-nil down. Payne won the right but had his spot kick saved. Feeney was not too upset with that, saying “Payney’s hit the penalty last week (scored against Hemel Hempstead Town). Both of them want to score goals and if I’d scored a penalty last week. I’d want to hit it. They are two experienced pros. They’ve got a habit of scoring goals and I’m not going to stand here and shout at anybody for missing a penalty. We’ve all been there. I’ve missed two, myself, in a game, so I fully back them. I back all of my players.”

They now prepare for the game at Dulwich Hamlet and Feeney will consider his options. “I’m not one to make knee jerk decisions and I used to love it as a player to play two games in 48 hours.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.