Following six consecutive home league and cup games, Welling United hit the road on Saturday with a Vanarama National League South match at St. Albans City.
At the start of the spell, they were well adrift of the relegation zone but their stunning victory against second placed Worthing on Tuesday evening has put them in with a real chance of completing the great escape. They are now just one point short of safety.
There has been something of a squad overhaul since Rod Stringer took on the manager’s role with an entirely new front line, and they certainly paid their part in the beating of Worthing. However, it was Danny Bloor’s ‘general’, Anthony Grant, who opened the scoring at the end of a crisp Welling passing move.
Just short of the hour mark, another excellent Welling move ended with Reece Grant getting on the end of a Crossley Lema low cross after a string of quick passes opened up the Worthing defence. A highly contentious penalty, converted by Ollie Pearce seven minutes later, brought the Rebels right back into the game and they were given another boost when, with six minutes remaining, Anthony Grant was shown a second yellow card.
Having seen off that time, the Wings saw that they would have to dig deeper as a minimum additional eleven minutes would be played. Worthing went ‘all or nothing’ and brought on the National League South’s all time leading goalscorer, Jake Robinson, for a defender.
Sonny Fish missed a chance to finish it six minutes in when thwarted by a great save but made no mistake four minutes later when breaking down the left wing, eased in . He then repeated the trick in the final minute of stoppage time. Tight close control by Jason Adigun then allowed him to send Fish clear to add a fourth.
While all this was going on, St Albans were bouncing back from their defeat at Bath City, last Saturday, by winning one-nil at Dover Athletic with a goal scored by Welling nemesis Shaun Jeffers. That took his total to ten goals in his last eight games.
When the two teams met in Welling in early September, it was a very different Wings team to the one who played on Tuesday and the spoils were shared in a goal-less draw. In last season’s corresponding fixture at Clarence Park, Glenn McConnell gave the Saints an early lead and as hard as Welling tried, they could not find an equaliser. McConnell scored again twenty minutes into the second period before Mitchell Weiss finished the scoring with eleven minutes remaining.
Over the last ten matches, St. Albans are third in the form guide with just the defeat at Bath and two draws interrupting their march into the play-offs. However, Stringer will take heart from the fact that seven sides have taken away all three points this season.
He will need to make at least one change to his starting line up as Will Wood sustained a potential season ending injury on Tuesday but Stringer will hope that one or two of his other absentees will be available for selection.
Images courtesy of Dave Budden