Victory over champions Ebbsfleet United guaranteed Vanarama National League South football for Welling United. Dennis Kutrieb, Ebbsfleet’s manager, picked his strongest team available and trained his players hard during the week with the aim of picking up maximum points from the remaining games.

However, they didn’t build on their fast start. Kutrieb said: “It was a tough game for us. We could have been four-one up at half time and then it would have been a different second half for us.

“It was an unlucky goal that we conceded to make it two-one and everyone woke up and then it was game on. I think it could have been much, much easier for us if we had been ruthless and taken our chances. Then we would have seen a different game but congratulations to Welling.”

“We are now looking forward to our celebrations next week after the game to celebrate what we have done.

“Always in football when you’re a goal down you need to chase (the game), you need to try and come back.” he continued.

“I always try to remind the boys we just need one goal then we are back in the game. Even at three-one you could see the goal was just a little bit too late. If we score the one before by Shaq (Shaquile Coulthirst) or we had a massive chance (a penalty appeal for a challenge on Elliott Romain).”

“I don’t know if it was a pen or not, I couldn’t see it, it would be a different story. If we scored then and there’s still ten minutes to go, then it would be a different game but it was just a little bit too late.”

Many clubs struggle when missing out on promotion as cruelly as Ebbsfleet last term and preparation in the summer was crucial.

Kutrieb said: “We tried to drum into the boys in the whole pre-season that we can’t lean back and just wait that something happens for us.

“We just need to grab our chances, we just need to play on the front foot, we just need to make sure it’s on us and not on our opposition. We could do this from pre-season as we could see that the team really wanted to push on.

“That’s why we started really well because we had a good pre-season and no hangover from last season.”

Pre-season will be equally important for next season, both in terms of recruitment and preparation.

“We need to be smart, we need to make the right decisions.” said Kutrieb.

“We know what we want to do. We know where we need to strengthen the squad. It’s an ongoing process. It’s not somewhere where we need to make decisions now and it’s done. When everybody else is on holiday it’s where we need to work hard and get the business part of football right. We want to have a good pre-season and go into next season right.”

Picture supplied by Ebbsfleet United.