Just days before the biggest match in their history, Tunbridge Wells continue to build momentum, with a 3-1 Kent League victory over Canterbury City.

Playing up the substantial slope at Winches Field in the first half, Tunbridge Wells seemed to be more tactically aware as they created the better, clearer chances, whereas Canterbury looked good up to the edge of the Tunbridge Wells area, but too often there was no end product.

All the goals came in the second half, as Wells capitalised on a slow restart from the hosts, with strikes from Jack Harris and Carl Cornell within 10 minutes.  Canterbury pulled one back through substitute Steven Baines, that could have set up a grandstand finish, but Jon Pilbeam sealed the three points in stoppage time.  But, the scoreline doesn’t detract from a man-of-the-match performance from Canterbury’s 16-year old goalkeeper Tom Hadler.

Tunbridge Wells’ manager, Martin Larkin, explained “It was comfortable.  We thought they would keep a high line that we broke through, and we should really have been two or three up by half-time.  Second half, after the second goal, we dropped off a bit and let the standards slip, and when we made a couple of changes the whole performance seemed to die a death.  When they scored we woke up a bit and got the third.  Really we should have scored six or seven today, and that probably wouldn’t have been an unjust scoreline.”

“They tried to compact the space by squeezing, but they weren’t pressing us high up, and that allowed us to get the ball wide and get time on the ball.  I thought they would change it at the half, but they didn’t and we’ve always got Josh (Stanford) and (Jon) Pilbeam’s pace to get in behind.”

Larkin admitted that the recent programme of games had caused his side a few problems, but that “we’ve had a bit of a rest during the week; we are grateful to Corinthian for moving their game (from last Thursday night).  We were able to train instead on Thursday night, which we haven’t been able to do for about a month, and we needed it to get the guys going again.  Everyone is fully fit and raring to go.”

Looking ahead to Monday’s game against Cray Valley at the Culverden Stadium, Larkin said “I might make a couple of changes, but we’ve got momentum now so we want to win it.  This run of games has damaged us a bit in the way of a winning habit, but there is a strong mentality in the dressing room that that shouldn’t matter too much.  So we might change a couple, but it will still be a strong team.”

Although with his club’s historic date on the horizon, he did reveal that “barring any disasters, we just about know our seventeen for Wembley.  We’ll make some decisions on Wednesday or Thursday as to who we’re going to start with, so we can work on things at training on Thursday, then decide the make-up of the bench on Friday.”

When it comes to telling those who won’t be involved on the big day, the Tunbridge Wells’ boss added “I’m not looking forward to that, but we are such a close-knit group that although it will be disappointing, we’ll get through it.  It is Wembley week now, so we’ve got to get the mindset right, and the group is the most important thing, not the individual.”

“A lot of people probably try to ignore it (the build-up) and not think about it.  But let’s get excited about it; it has been a long, hard season for both teams, so let’s get energised. All the club suits arrived this week, so we’ve got to enjoy and embrace this.  We opened a Wembley shop in town this morning, with all the players there meeting the fans.  We’ll train well this week. We’re at our best when playing at a really high tempo, so we can get energised from that.  We’ve sold so many tickets, and just the fact we’re at Wembley – let’s enjoy it.”

“I think we’re closer to 9,000 tickets sold now, and with more on the day, I think we’ll have over 10,000 supporting us.  As a legacy side for the club, this is something we can really build on.”