Cray Wanderers have announced the appointment of Mark Stimson as Assistant First Team Manager. 

Mark, a five time former FA Trophy Winners as Manager will assist Tim O’Shea who has been confirmed as first team manager for the 2025-26 season.

Mark whose last managerial post was at Margate towards the end of the 2023-24 season will join Tim and the coaching staff for Friday’s league game at Horsham.

Mark came through the Tottenham Hotspur Youth Section and was a team mate of Tim was Youth Team Captain at White Hart Lane in 1987-88. Mark made his Spurs first team debut towards the end of the 1986-87 season. 

He then went out like Tim to Leyton Orient before joining then Division 2 Newcastle United from 1989-92, Portsmouth after an initial loan spell from 1993-96 and then on to Southend United before heading into non-league football which included an FA Trophy Winners medal with Canvey Island in 2000-01.

His managerial career began at Grays Athletic where he used to be a player and at the time were one of the leading lights of the non-league game. Grays were Conference South Champions in 2004-05 winning the FA Trophy in the same season and won it again the following year.  That season, 2005-06, Mark’s Grays side met Cray Wanderers in the 4^th Qualifying Round of the FA Cup while Grays top the National League.

From here he spent a season at then non-league Stevenage and made it a hat-trick of FA Trophy wins in 2006-07. His success there saw him into the Football League with Gillingham and helped the Kent side gain promotion to League One in 2008-09 beating Shrewsbury Town in the Final but were relegated the following year. 

He returned to the Non-League game with Barnet, Kettering Town and had great success at Thurrock between 2012 and 2018 earning the Essex side promotion to the Isthmian Premier in 2016-17. 

Then via Waltham Abbey had five successful years at Hornchurch from 2018-2023 winning the FA Trophy for the fourth time as a manager in 2021. 

After leaving Hornchurch in 2023 he was briefly at Canvey Island and Margate but now returns alongside his former Spurs team-mate as Assistant Manager and helps to add even more gravitas to a fine managerial team and bench.