It is the season that many Cray Wanderers fans thought that they may never see as the Club moves into their new permanent home at Flamingo Park. 

Boss Neil Smith has been talking to KSN this week about what faces the Wands in the next few weeks and months as the “official” return now looms large on the horizon. 

But first there’s the one period of the season that you either love or loath and Smith falls into the latter. “I don’t like pre-season,” the Cray boss confessed.

“People get false readings, players come in and especially at our level and it only takes someone to have a chat with them and their heads get turned and they move on again.

“This period is all about getting the fitness right and getting all the stuff that you want to try and prepare with your squad as you build it slowing but surely, making sure that you get not just the right players in respect of their ability but the right people to come in knowing that it’s going to be a tough ask this season!” 

As well as building the squad, there is of course the anticipation of Flamingo Park’s very first League game, something that even the vastly experienced Smith hasn’t faced before, he told us: “The excitement is building as we’ve seen it from when it was a Car Park and piles of rubble to a fantastic pitch with stands now in place and surroundings now ready.

“There is a football “zone” and a stage for live events! We have seen it daily and now the anticipation of the first League game is starting to really build now and hopefully all the things that we must iron out during pre-season will be ready come August 10!” 

“For me our first League game was always going to be the official opening game for the ground,” Smith went on.

“I know that there have been a couple of games already and some will class them as their first game and technically I suppose rightly so as they have been played on the pitch. But for me, that becomes our home on the first League game of the season when everything will be ready.

“Pre-season will be done and dusted and now it will be bread and butter of playing in the League and that is when I will class it as home for me anyway on the first home League game.” 

“I will be honored to lead the Club at that first League game in the Clubs new official home. At some stages when I was first Bromley manager, I do believe that Cray were just as big as Bromley.

“They though have gone to another level and are now classed as a League club which is phenomenal when I think about the time that I first went there to where they are now.

“I know the dream for owners is to get into the League one day, I know that everything Bromley had to go through to get where they are now.” 

“It is a slog, there are other teams with probably more money that can do it a lot quicker but we have to make sure that the foundations are right and have the right youth set up – girls and boys – hopefully with a twenty-threes as well to create a pathway into the Youth team; the women’s team have done amazing and want to go again and so we can help make that strong, and then we have the first team trying to win promotion.

“We know how difficult it will be, but we will get there with everybody pushing in the same direction, one builds a club; two build a team and hopefully build future winners which is what we all want.”