Defeat at home to Sutton United ended Welling United’s pre-season campaign. After the match, Rod Stringer gave his views.

“I thought that we were excellent against a Conference National team (Ebbsfleet United on Tuesday evening) but today we played a different proposition. I thought they were outstanding, to be fair to Sutton, especially in the first half when they scored three good goals, but those goals were due to our mistakes, collectively and individually.”

“They were very athletic, they were big, they were strong, didn’t see them put too many balls astray in the whole ninety minutes so it was a tough test for us, really tough. 

“We did have our chances. We hit the bar a couple of times, the keeper pulled off a couple of good saves, and Reece (Grant) has gone through. To not score today is a little disappointing, the way we conceded our goals was disappointing, but we got into them at half time and we had a few home truths.”

“We had a few situations in the first half to deal with like Harvey Walker (stretchered off with what was later confirmed to be a broken leg) and things like that. I found out when I got here today that Oscar Borg wasn’t fit but we came out in the second half and kept a clean sheet against a really good Sutton United side.”

“We were a bit lopsided as we had to play Cam (Andrews) at left wing back and (in the second half) we had to play TJ (Bramble) at right wing back.”

However, overall, Stringer is happy with how the last few weeks have gone. He confirmed: “I think we’ve had a fairly decent pre-season. It’s not about the results, it’s about the minutes and getting the team right and getting the squad balanced. I think we’ve done that.”

“Obviously, now losing Harvey knocks a bit of balance out of us. We didn’t play Granty (Anthony Grant) today because he’s carrying a little bit of a knock. There won’t be a problem with that. He’d have played if we wanted him to play and then we’ve got Dave Winfield, we know what big Dave offers us, and I think that he will be looking to get himself right for next Saturday so it wasn’t worth trying to risk those players today.”

“Really, the season kicks off next Saturday against Aveley and we want all of our players fit and available. The rest of the squad has come together. I think there’s been some massive pluses.”

Teddy Perkins will not be available as back up for Winfield, and Stringer has yet to confirm his decision on the trialist centre back.

He stated: “Teddy’s got an achilles situation so he won’t be ready. He’s another two or so weeks away from training. We have a lot of food for thought on a few things and we’ll see what happens between now and Saturday.”

There’s an open training session that supporters are welcome to attend on Thursday morning from 10am until mid-day. Stringer hopes that it will be well attended as he knows how important the fans are.

“They’re massive for us at this football club.” he said. “We really need their backing. I think that if we can get to the performances that we did against Ebbsfleet, we could have a good season but we’re going to need them behind us home and away.”

“When I first came to the club, they were outstanding and we had a great end to the season and now we’ve got to have a good start so we need every supporter to come over, back us.”

“We’ve got the training open day here on Thursday so anybody whose looking to take the little ones out, instead of going to the seaside, pop down to Welling and we’ll be out here training and afterwards we’ll try and spend some time with the little ones.”

“It’s a family club and that’s what we want it to be. Hopefully we’ll see some good faces down here from ten to twelve and then hopefully next Saturday this ground will be rocking.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.