Cray Wanderers’ stop start season finally gets going again on Sunday when they welcome rock bottom Haringey Borough to Hayes Lane and boss Neil Smith has called on his side to start their own push up the table away from the relegation zone that the Wands are currently flirting with. 

Smith’s side go into the weekend in the last “safe” place in the table ten points ahead of their table propping visitors but with the manger still reflecting on points that have escaped his side recently most notably against Dulwich and in the Wands last game against Whitehawk ten days ago, when the visitors grabbed a point in stoppage time. 

“I think we deserved to win,” Smith told us this week. “The late goal made it feel like a defeat in the end – a stray pass let them in to get their equaliser and even against Dulwich the game before, I felt as though we deserved more than the point we got! We need to win games to start getting the gap between ourselves and the bottom four soe we can start moving into the middle to enable us to push on. It is going in the right direction – we know we have got a tough period ahead over Christmas and I am just hoping that we can now push on.”  

“Haringey will be another tough game for us on Sunday,” Smith admitted. “They are another side in the division who are not where they would want to be. They will be physical, they will be strong – they are like a lot of teams, they will pull out a great result and then lose, which sums up the Premier Division in general – anyone who can be a little bit more consistent can put a real run together!” 

“Now that teams are catching up on fixtures for whatever reason, the whole division is getting tighter, and it starts to get a bit clearer where teams are. Apart from Hornchurch, I think everyone is up and down, but I am sure that over the Christmas period and going into January people know that is that is when you have to put a run together if you are going to do anything this season.” 

“It’s been tough playing and then not playing – it’s been really tough,” Smith went on. “Everyone gets up to speed and you get a little bit of team spirit going and you get team play going and then you do not play for ten days, and you are back at the start literally. We have not yet played in December and have got one more game before Christmas after Sunday before playing ten games in thirty-six days – it is simply crazy!” 

Cray sit in the middle of the form table with nine points from their last six games and have lost just one of seven in the League since being beaten by leaders Hornchurch in mid-October. “I need all the players fit which we haven’t had,” Smith confessed, “But I’m hoping now that after this latest ten days rest anyone who’s injured will be closer to a return and we can put a good winning run together.” 

With Smiths side still sharing with Bromley, he admitted that the changing of the fixture dates is another difficulty he and his back-room staff face to keep the consistency that he is craving for… “Preparation from one week to another is really up in the air – and the weather doesn’t help,” the Cray boss exclaimed. “One minute you are preparing for games are weathered off. We are now playing Haringey – you get the prep right but then the games get called off meaning theres no time to train and then you have got to try and find the time to get everything back and up to speed!” 

Picture supplied by Jon Hilliger.