Bank Holiday football returns to the Halcyon Wealth Longmead Stadium when Tonbridge Angels entertain Welling United in a Vanarama National League South fixture.

They meet regularly over Bank Holidays. Last year, they played each other twice over the festive period and the season before’s fixture at Longmead was on the Saturday of the Easter weekend. 

Jay Saunders’ Angels have got off to a mixed start. They opened with an only goal defeat at Worthing, and followed up by losing at home to Weston-super-Mare by the same score-line. They then beat Dover Athletic one-nil at home before recording an impressive victory at Chippenham Town. On Saturday they travelled to Yeovil Town and lost two-nil.

It has been a difficult opening few weeks for Welling. They lost their first four matches. They were trounced at Truro before odd goal defeats at home to Hemel Hempstead Town and Chelmsford City, and away to Taunton Town, left them pointless from four. However, Danny Bloor enjoyed his first success as Welling manager on Saturday with a three-two win over Havant and Waterlooville.

Both teams have been struggling for goals. Nobody has scored more than one for Welling although they have had six different goalscorers. Lewis Gard has netted twice for the Angels, but that accounts for sixty-six percent of their goals.

When the two teams met in Tonbridge on Boxing Day, Ade Azeez scored the only goal, ten minutes into the second half, as the Wings claimed the three points. Welling also won the return fixture on New Year’s Day. Taylor Maloney put Welling ahead in the first half before Gard levelled. Azeez claimed the winner just before half time.

Two current Tonbridge players were at Welling last season. Kodi Lyons-Foster and Stefan Payne have switched clubs but won’t see too many of their former team-mates as there has been a big turn-over of playing staff at the club.

Tight games are the norm between the clubs with no games in which they met having a difference of more than one goal since Tonbridge were promoted in 2019.

Image courtesy of Dave Budden