On Saturday, Welling United host Hemel Hempstead Town in another important Vanarama National League South fixture.

Last Saturday, they were defeated at Slough Town in a game in which, for once, they were definitely second best.

Then, on Tuesday night Welling travelled to Herne Bay for a Kent Senior Cup game. Peter Taylor selected a team made up of trialists and players who had not had a lot of football recently. 

After the game, Taylor said “The result wasn’t the most important thing. Staying in the league is our priority. It’s as simple as that. The majority of the trialists who played haven’t played much football so we were always going to struggle in the last twenty minutes of the game so to be fair to them, they soldiered on. They did brilliantly.”

Whilst there had been trialists at training recently, it was Taylor’s first sight in a Welling shirt of others. “Some of them haven’t trained at all.” He said “Some of them have done a few sessions, not much, but for me it’s not easy to judge them in training. The better judgement is when you see them in a match. The majority of them didn’t do themselves any harm so I’m sure we’ll carry on looking.”

Of those that hadn’t played much in a Welling shirt recently, he said “I thought that Bradley Pearce did very well and Teddy (Perkins), you could see that he has been playing football for Chipstead so he was in good nick.”

As far as the upcoming game with Hemel is concerned, he said “We’ve got to get some results. I’m not unhappy about the way that we are playing but I am unhappy about the results. There’s things that we’ve got to improve on. We’ve got to stop conceding poor goals and we’ve got to take our chances.”

Hemel Hempstead are currently placed eleventh in the league, five points shy of the play-off places. Away from home, their record is good with six wins and two draws from their thirteen games although they have only won once in their last five on the road.

When Welling visited Hemel back in October, the spoils were shared. Joash Nembhard put the hosts ahead shortly before half time but Daniel Carr ensured that Welling did not come home empty handed when converting from the spot ten minutes into the second half.

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.