Victory over Bath City extended Welling United’s unbeaten league run to nine games and kept them firmly in third place of the Vanarama National League South.

Manager, Steve King, accepted that it hadn’t been Welling’s best performance of the season but was impressed with how his team keeps grinding out results. “It was a tough game and I didn’t expect anything different.” he said.

“They’re a very, very good side, Bath. They’re in the play-offs for a reason. We knew what kind of game it was going to be. We knew they were going to have a lot of possession on the ball. We defended pretty well, limited them to a couple of chances really.

“Dan (Wilks)’s made a couple of decent chances but we’ve had our own chances today. I felt like we were playing counter-attack today. I felt that they kept the ball better but they didn’t really have the person to hurt us.”

King knew the importance of keeping it tight. He explained his thoughts going into the game, saying “We said today that it was important that we don’t lose the game. That was our motto. ‘Do not lose the game.’. If we didn’t lose the game we would have kept three points above Bath, If we won the game we would go six points above them and six points is two games.”

As much as King would like to win by playing attractive football he accepts that it’s not always possible. “We dug in.” he said. “We dug deep and ran ourselves into the ground. Sometimes it’s nice to win when you haven’t played that brilliantly but we’ve dug the result out.

“It’s all about the result at this time of the year.” he continued. “The next one will be about the result, and the one after. Right now it’s about the business end and getting three points.”

When looking at the Bath starting team, King felt that his opposite number, Jerry Gill, was equally keen to keep it tight. He said “They paid us huge respect playing four-five-one with the midfield man joining the forward so that said it all for me.

“I don’t think they’ve played four-five-one all season so they’ve come here probably not to get beaten but then they started to get control of the game in little pockets and thought they could get something here. It changed a little bit then.”

Although they now have a buffer between them and fourth place, King will not allow his players to ease off. “Foot’s got to be right down.” he said. “That’s nine unbeaten, seven wins and two draws. I think we would like to get third if we can. It’s quite a thing, third place, because you by-pass the quarter final and go straight into the semi-final in a one off game at home.

Our home form is the best in the league, or near on the best in the league, so we will keep going with our foot down to try and secure that third place if we can. We’ve targetted from about five weeks ago can we get in, number one and number two can we get in and go on a run? Can we get third? There’s still teams looking for that third place. At the moment, we’re in the box seat.”

Images courtesy of Dave Budden