On a warm August Bank Holiday Monday, chances were few and far between when Welling United visited newly promoted Hornchurch. After the game, Welling manager Rod Stringer expressed his views. “Neither goalkeepers have had loads to do.” he said.

“In the second half their keeper’s made a couple. He took one off Chuks’ (Anointed Chukwu) head, took one off Reece (Grant)’s head but I just said to them when you look at the conditions here, the pitch is very difficult. It’s not conducive to the way we play. You’ve got the running track and it’s very open. It’s the elements. It’s still blowing now. They’re a decent side as well and they’ve got some good players. It’s very windy and it’s all about knockdowns and second balls.”

Stringer continued “I said to them there I’m a little bit disappointed. In between the two boxes I thought we competed well. I think we tried to get the ball down and play a bit more, second half, which we did, but we can’t say that a point here is a bad point. It’s a very hard place to come and I’m sure that a lot of teams will struggle here and I’m glad that we’ve got it out of the way.

“They’re a big, strong, physical side with some good players who have played in the league above. They look like they’ve got a lot of togetherness. They run hard for one another. They’ve got a big goalkeeper on loan from West Ham who, really we made his life easy, we never really tested him enough for me.

“If you ask me about the work ethic and the way that the boys put a shift in, I’ve got no problems. If you ask could we be better in the last third then yes, definitely but I thought we defended in our box fantastically. I was so pleased with our centre halves and our full backs today. I thought they were outstanding.”

Two games in three days is always tough. Stringer added “They’re quite an experienced side, an ageing side a little bit. They’ve got a lot of players who’ve been around and they would have felt it quite tough today to go out and go again. We’ve certainly got a couple of older heads in there that needed to look after themselves with one day’s rest but you could see that at the end.

“It looked like a Boxing match. You’re ducking and diving to try and score points. You knew it was going to be a draw on the cards but both teams were still trying to get the knock-out right at the death but it was an entertaining game on that side of things but it was nothing like what we saw us do at home on Saturday in the first half.”

Although the football wasn’t as free flowing as it was against Farnborough, it was a different type of game, but it was still a good watch. Stringer said “I wouldn’t say that it was a terrible display. You’ve got to know a bit about football to recognise that this place here is very tough. It’s like going to Chelmsford. They’re very tough places to go.

“They’re very open, pitches aren’t always as nice as some other pitches in this league and you have to fight for whatever you get here and I felt that the boys certainly deserved the point and I suppose if I said three points I think (Hornchurch manager) Daryl (McMahon) would be a bit disappointed with that because he probably feels that they could’ve nicked it as well.”

Overall, a win and a draw over the holiday weekend was a reasonable return, even if Stringer was hoping for two victories. He said “If you’d said to me on Friday that you’re going to get four points out of six over the long weekend I’d have probably taken that.”

Images courtesy of Dave Budden