Ahead of their televised FA Cup First Round game at The Valley next weekend, the focus of Cray Valley PM boss Steve McKimm this week is down the “other” Road to Wembley in the FA Trophy as they head to Medway to face in form Chatham Town. 

But McKimm is fully focused on the task at hand as we suggested that Valley could have done without such a tough assignment the week before heading to The Valley. “Not at all,” McKimm said.

“We need to keep playing games, if you have a week off then players might get rusty, and all sorts might happen! You do not want people’s minds wandering on something that is not here yet.” 

“We’ve a game this week against Chatham which will be a tough game and then we will focus the full week on what we have the following Sunday, but its Chatham first!” 

“I understand that the games between the teams last year were very close. They of course got promoted and are doing really well and flying high. They have momentum from what they did last year, and they have taken that into this year and for that credit to them!

“They have a good squad; a good management team and they will be challenging for another promotion spot I believe and they’ve a fan base that will back them all the way.” 

“We told the boys last Saturday at East Grinstead that the games coming up were not as important as that game as the next game. We got that out of the way and turned our attentions to Littlehampton on Tuesday with the same message.

“We were a little bit under par on Tuesday, Littlehampton had a game plan and did really well. But it’s another game where we haven’t been beaten which makes it three wins and two draws in the League so far and if you’ve taken all the Cup games that we’ve played so far (that totals 13 in all competitions) and you’d have said at the start we’d have three wins and two draws in the League at the start of the season, any manager would have taken that as you can always look at what you could have done and could have won.” 

“The performance last Saturday was fantastic, we played Punjab on the Tuesday before and were not very good! Going into the League game the players were focused, the mindset was there, and they hit the ground running.

“Very pleased with what they did Saturday, and I was pleased with parts of Tuesday; we said a few things afterwards which will be addressed in training before the weekend, very pleased with their application over the last two games with, let us get it right, what could be on their minds!” 

“We know how hard it is going to be as we are getting to the stage where certain teams, you are playing against are going to be at a higher level so we have got to enjoy the games and take what we can out of them!

“Saturday will be our seventh game in October and in November we have got eight and December and January will probably be the same because we are playing catch-up and if we continue to do well in the Cups then that will continue into the New Year.” 

“I’m not someone who worries about backlogs and moans about them because you’ve got backlogs for a reason and that reason is that we’ve done well in the Cups so far earning the Club money and long may that continue!” 

McKimm reported a reasonably clean bill of health ahead of the weekend with “a couple of niggles from the other night” but the manager confirmed that he was hoping to have a full squad to choose from for the trip to the Bauvill.