Cray Wanderers play the second of six pre-season home friendlies on Saturday as the Wands host Sheffield FC in the Heritage Cup in a match pitting the oldest club in London (1860) vs the World’s Oldest Football Club (1857) as two of the forefathers of the game meet at Flamingo Park. Kick off 3 pm.
Cray began their pre-season schedule last Saturday with a Flamingo Park stadium opener against SE Dons and finished in a 1-1 draw with Enoch Muwonge leveling fifteen minutes from the end. Neil Smith has been quietly and efficiently building a squad for the season ahead and has signed prolific goalscorers David Smith and Alex Teniola along with midfielders Jack Leahy and Charlie Edwards and central defender Quade Taylor. Key players from last season, Shaun Rowley, David Ijaha, Anthony Cook, Frankie Raymond and Nyren Clunis have all re-signed and with pre-season still in its early stages there is still time to add to the squad. With the league fixtures out next week and pre-season games at VCD Athletic on Thursday 18th July and home games vs Bromley U21s, Millwall, Crystal Palace and Tottenham to come there is still plenty to look forward to ahead of the start of the season on 10th August.
Sheffield began their pre-season schedule ahead of the Northern Premier League Division One East season with a 1-1 draw at Dearne & District on 2nd July and was followed up by a 2-1 defeat at Frickley Athletic on Tuesday night. Ryan Cresswell’s side will kick off their season on 3rd August in the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round at home to Nantwich Town. Sheffield finished in 13th place last season.
There is no doubt that the two clubs have moved in totally different circles over the course of their long histories. Sheffield were formed in 1857 by members of Sheffield Cricket Club who kicked a ball around in their spare time whilst Cray Wanderers down in the village of St Mary Cray were formed by railway workers working on the new London – Chatham – Dover railway which passed through the village. Sheffield though from a University town at a time when the game had seemingly different rules to whichever area you travelled to played under the Sheffield Rules which as time went on as the rules of Association Football were assimilated in elements of Sheffield rules like the award of corner kicks and free kicks were adopted. So the football that the Cray Wanderers club would have played and rules would have been considerably different to what Sheffield would have played. As the club began to compete in competitive football Cray Wanderers style became more sophisticated with Herbert Berens in the side who had been educated at Westminster School who did so much to promote football in London.
Sheffield FC
Sheffield along with Hallam FC also formed in 1860 have played each other every year since with the Football Association formed in 1863 with Sheffield being a key part of the decision making. In 1872, Charles Clegg, a Sheffield player featured in the very first match between England v Scotland and competed in the FA Cup for the first time the following year and reached the 4th Round in 1877-78 and 1879-80 whilst remaining completely amateur as professionalism was beginning to come into the game and two famous professional clubs, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday were very successful but Sheffield remained a vital part of the area and football in general.
In 1904, Sheffield won the FA Amateur Cup, a competition they had advocated for non-professional clubs by beating Ealing 3-1 in the Final. After the Second World War, Sheffield joined the Yorkshire League in 1949 and remained there until 1982 when the league merged with the Midland League to form the Northern Counties East League. In 1977 Sheffield reached the FA Vase Final where they lost to Billericay Town 2-1 after a replay at the City Ground. They won the Division One Championship in 1988-89 and after relegation the following year won it again in 1990-91. Following these successes, they have won the Sheffield and Hallamshire Senior Cup on five occasions.
In their 150th Year in 2007 Sheffield were promoted to the Northern Premier League for the first time (Step 4) and for the anniversary celebrations FIFA President Sepp Blatter attended and played matches against Inter Milan and Ajax with Pele present at the Inter match. In 2007-08 they reached the playoffs final losing to Nantwich Town and were semi-finalists in 2010 and 2012.
Sheffield played Cray in the Heritage Cup along with Hallam FC in on 31st July 2010 which Cray won after a penalty shootout victory against Sheffield. Hallam beat Sheffield 1-0, Cray beat Hallam 1-0 and Sheffield beat Cray 2-1 with the Wands winning 7-6 in the shoot-out.
Sheffield have played at the Coach and Horses ground in Dronfield since 2001 but are on course to move to a new stadium in Sheffield so definitely Saturday sees two clubs on the up on and off the field.
Admission on Saturday, £10 adults, £5 concessions, £2 U18s on the gate or online at www.cray-wanderers.com/tickets/ with a souvenir programme, pin badges and a brand new Cray Wanderers history book, Wandering No More on sale for the first time.
The Pre-Season thoughts of Neil Smith
Cray Wanderers vs. Sheffield FC – The Heritage Cup – 13/7/24
This afternoon sees a unique match for Cray Wanderers second pre-season friendly with the visit of Sheffield FC to Flamingo Park. Here Wands manager Neil Smith looks ahead to a first pre-season at our new ground, thoughts on new signings, retained players, our friendly schedule and best wishes for England on Sunday in the Final of Euro 2024.
Hello Neil. A warm welcome back to you, Tosh, Alfie, Ally, Paddy and Robert for the start of pre-season. This is your third pre-season campaign as Cray Wanderers manager but the first for us with the facilities we now have at Flamingo Park and our new home which must make it rather special.
Yes, definitely. Not having to find somewhere to train and trailing after people when you have a home of your own is brilliant. Everything is all in-house and you only have to go to one place so getting the players training on your own pitch is phenomenal and hopefully is a game changer for us.
Obviously the club is progressing in terms of a successful Women’s team after just one season, a new U23s team and also a terrific, well run youth set up for boys and girls but even better now with our own facilities.
The club is growing, hopefully there is a better infrastructure now from the youth to the U23s team and for the girls as well and into the first team. It is good, you look at the U18s who on a Tuesday or Thursday can come and train side by side with the first team. So they are not training separately from us so are under the same umbrella. So anytime you need to add players they can come straight through to us.
Looking at pre-season and the build up to the season, is this where managers really earn their corn creating a blueprint for the nine month season ahead!
It is and it isn’t! At this level of football you have such a big turn around of players even during the season and pre-season is exactly the same. A lot of people are being promised stuff, some going on trials with so called higher league clubs then all of a sudden players become available who may not have been when pre-season started. So all during the summer you have no time off, you are doing a lot of phoning around or conversations are going ahead without any agreements. If anything does happen, you make yourself available to be contacted. I don’t really like pre-season as it can give a false sense of everything. For me pre-season is all about fitness, having no injuries and building a team spirit for the rest of the season.
Looking at some of the new arrivals that have joined us, two forwards, Alex Teniola and David Smith, both prolific goalscorers. Was this a particular area you are looking to improve from last season?
Yes definitely. I spoke to Gary Lockyer at the end of last season and it was always going to be difficult for him to commit to us for this season due to his home location and setting up his own business which is more local with Ashford. They have given him permission not to train on certain days where I couldn’t guarantee that. With David Smith, we know he is a prolific goalscorer in the right environment and has played at a higher level. Alex Teniola is always going to be a handful with his size and brings that following with him which hopefully we can generate at the club. It was an area we needed to improve on. Losing Nyren for a fair chunk of the season, Danny Bassett had departed, Cookie is always going to chip in but apart from Gary we did lack that goalscorer but when we needed him he came up trumps.
You’ve also added the likes of Charlie Edwards, Jack Leahy, Quade Taylor adding to a spine of the team but also kept some of last season’s stalwarts like Frankie Raymond, Shaun Rowley, Anthony Cook, Nyren Clunis, David Ijaha and Tom Bonner.
Yes, David was player of the year last season and deservedly so, he was phenomenal. I think the season before was his way back into playing a full season and last year was his first in a few seasons where he played that amount of matches. To keep him was a massive achievement as there were clubs offering him better deals than we could but he felt at home here and well supported. Tom Bonner as well is a leader of men, keeping Frankie who was also outstanding when he played for us and I think he can kick on again. Added to that we have Charlie Edwards that knows the league very well, Jack Leahy with his pace and was at Hornchurch who won promotion so you hope he brings a bit of that. Others like Bradley Ryan as well who came on and did a bit last Saturday and did well. We are looking for a little bit of flair and players that can do something a little bit different. Down the spine you do have to have your solid players so that the flair players can play.
Looking at our friendlies for this pre-season, we have games against Premier League & Football League sides and today we take on Sheffield in the Heritage Cup which is quite a fixture in this day and age of sophistication in football that two clubs formed in the Victorian era will still be playing and quite a story and footballing wise could be a real contrast in styles against you would imagine a steely Sheffield side.
That’s right, it’s brilliant having the oldest club in the country whilst we are the oldest in London. It’s a fantastic bit of experience to go alongside Millwall, a Championship club, Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur, Premier League and Bromley, League 2. I think for a club where we are to be able to get those clubs here is a massive achievement and a lot of hard work from the people to organise it. Tosh has done a lot of graft to get a Tottenham side down here. We had others who wanted to play us but just couldn’t fit us in but maybe during the season we can play a West Ham XI or Charlton Athletic XI. We’ve done really well to get those clubs at this level and we thank them for coming down with the teams they are going to bring. Again we are looking to put this club on the map and I think to be able to get those clubs it does help as we want local people to start supporting us. We thank Bromley dearly but we don’t want Bromley supporters that are just local. We want to create a Cray support and that comes from the youth team setups. After training they just walk across into the bar area and straight onto the pitch the other side. That was always hard when you were playing at Bromley. Now they can play a game on a Saturday morning, stay during the afternoon and hopefully give them entertainment on and off the pitch with the bar and make it an event when you come to a Cray game. We don’t really want people coming here at 2.55 and leaving at 5.05, we would like them to stay and enjoy the moment and the experience.
Today we are expecting a type of game that you would get in the Isthmian Premier whilst the games against U23s opposition we expect to be more possession based but we are expecting Sheffield to be strong and just what we need to get us ready for the upcoming season. The other thing is that next week we can’t wait to get the fixtures for the new season and start building where we are for the start of the season.
Finally Neil a word on Sunday for Gareth Southgate and England in the Euro 2024 final against Spain in Berlin. It was only a couple of weeks ago that many were calling for him to go so to get to a second successive Euros final is quite an achievement.
Football is a game where after the event everybody knows better. When you are in that dugout and you are seeing things that’s happened in training and there’s reasons why you might be playing people and not playing others. Supporters don’t get to see that, they see players names go down on a sheet, “I wouldn’t do this” and that is why football is so great because everybody is right. Everybody is right in hindsight!
So for Gareth to put himself out there, he has done brilliant. I think he will own up and say at times we haven’t played well enough with the quality of players that we have but you need to peak at the right time in a tournament. There is no point peaking at the beginning and fading, you want to peak on Sunday. It was great on Wednesday night, me and Tosh watched it here with all the kids straight up from training. It was an amazing evening and hopefully Sunday is exactly the same.
Good luck to England and to have Marc Guehi in there, a former Cray Wanderers youth player, hopefully when the kids watch it on the screen they can see that it could happen for them. I was at Bromley when Ollie Watkins was playing for Weston super Mare, you could see then he was a league above, could I have seen him scoring a winner for England in a Semi-Final, probably not eleven years ago but looking at him now you just think everybody has a chance, there’s no set way of getting to where you want to get to apart from work hard and to believe in yourself and anything is achievable.
DIRECTIONS TO CRAY WANDERERS FC
Cray Wanderers FC – Flamingo Park Sports & Leisure – Sidcup By-Pass, Chislehurst, Kent BR7 6HL
Flamingo Park lies on the A20 and is the new home of Cray Wanderers and used for the Men and Women’s First Team, U23s, Youth Team games, Academy side and the club house hosts live music and private events. For the 2024-25 season Bexley FC will also play their Kent County League Premier games at Flamingo Park.
By car
From Kent – Via M20 or A2
M20 – Follow the M20 for 16.8 miles then continue on to A20 for 3.6 miles then continue on to Sidcup By-Pass Road/A20 for 1.9 miles. Continue onto Sidcup By-Pass/A20 for 0.3 miles then take a left into the ground entrance and another left for the car park.
A2 – Get on the M2 from A229 for 5.1 miles. After merging onto the M2 after 5.5 miles continue onto Watling Street/A2 for 8.7 miles. Use the left lane to take the M25 (S) slip road to M23 for 0.7 miles. Merge onto the M25 for 2.4 miles then at junction 3, exit towards A20/London (SE)/Swanley for 0.3 miles. At the Swanley interchange, take the 5th exit onto the A20 slip road to London (SE)/Lewisham for 0.8 miles. Merge onto the A20 for 3.5 miles then continue onto Sidcup By-Pass Road/A20 for 1.9 miles. Continue onto Sidcup By-Pass/A20 for 0.3 miles then take a left into the ground entrance and another left for the car park.
From London, North & West
Via A20 – If traveling from London take A3212, A302 and Westminster Bridge Road and at the roundabout take the 3rd exit onto St. George’s Circus/A201 and after 0.3 miles turn left onto New Kent Road/A201 for 0.5 miles. Then keep right staying on New Kent Road/A201 for 0.4 miles and then onto Old Kent Road/A2 for 2.6 miles. Take a slight right onto Amersham Road/A2/A20 then a left onto Amersham Road/A20 for 0.2 miles. Take a slight right onto Lewisham Way/A20 for 1.1 miles and then use the left 3 lanes to turn left onto Rennell Street/A20 for 1.9 miles. Use the right 2 lanes to turn slightly onto Sidcup Road/A20 for 0.3 miles then at the roundabout take the 2nd exit and stay on Sidcup Road/A20 for 3.7 miles. Then take the A222 towards Bromley/Chislehurst/Sidcup for 0.2 miles then at Frognal Corner Roundabout take the 4th exit onto the A20 slip road to C. London/Lewisham for 0.3 miles. Then merge onto the Sidcup By-Pass Road/A20 for 0.6 miles and then onto the Sidcup By-Pass for 0.3 miles. Then take a left into the entrance to the ground and another left into the car park.
From Essex/East Anglia
Via A13 – If traveling from Essex/East Anglia get onto the A13 for 11.6 miles. Use the left lane to take the M25 (N)/M25 (S) slip road to M11/M1/Stansted Airport/Dartford Crossing/A282 for 0.2 miles. At Mardyke Junction take the 1st exit for 0.3 miles and then use the right lane to take the A282 slip road to M25 (S)/Dartford Crossing then keep right at the fork to continue towards A282 for 3.8 miles. Use the right 3 lanes to stay on A282 then follow signs for M20/M23/Gatwick Airport /M25/Channel Tunnel/Dover for 0.6 miles. Continue onto M25 (signs for Dover/M20/Channel Tunnel/M23 for 3.3 miles. At junction 3 exit towards A20/London (SE)/Swanley for 0.3 miles and at Swanley Interchange take the 5th exit onto the A20 slip road to London (SE)/Lewisham for 0.8 miles. Then merge onto the A20 for 3.5 miles, continue onto Sidcup By-Pass Rd/A20 for 1.9 miles and then continue onto the Sidcup By-Pass for 0.3 miles then turn left into the entrance to the ground and then a left into the car park.
From: Sussex/South
If traveling from Sussex/South best get on Hastings Road/Pembury By-Pass/A21 in Kent from A267 and after 9.4 miles continue straight onto Sevenoaks Bypass/A21 for 3.8 miles and then keep right to continue onto M25. After 7.9 miles at junction 3 use the left 2 lanes to take the A20 exit to London/Lewisham/Channel Tunnel/Maidstone/M20 for 0.3 miles. At Swanley Interchange take the 2nd exit onto the A20 slip road to London (SE)/Lewisham for 0.5 miles. Merge onto the A20 for 3.5 miles, continue onto Sidcup By-Pass Rd/A20 for 1.9 miles and then continue onto the Sidcup By-Pass for 0.3 miles then turn left into the entrance to the ground and then a left into the car park.
By Train – Nearest BR Station – New Eltham – 1 mile. Trains from London Charing Cross/London Cannon Street/London Bridge or from Dartford/Gravesend.
From the station walk south-east onto Foots Cray Road/A211 for 0.3 miles then turn right onto Thaxted Road for 0.2 miles. Then turn left towards Sidcup Road/A20 and cross over the pedestrian footbridge and take a sharp and then a slight right towards Sidcup Road/A20 for 0.4 miles and then turn right and then a left into the entrance to the ground.
By Bus – The best bet is to get the 233 from Swanley, Sidcup, Eltham or New Eltham which stops on Thaxted Road but is around 0.8 miles to the ground. The 160 from Carlton Road, Sidcup stops at Montbelle Road as does the 162 which also stops at New Eltham Station and the Fiveways roundabout and is around a 22 minutes walk to the ground.
Nearest Hotel: Premier Inn London Eltham
738 Sidcup Road, Eltham, London
SE9 3NS
Sat Nav Directions:SE9 3TJ
Directions:
From South Circular Road, take A20 Sidcup Bypass until you reach Fiveways, where Sidcup Road meets Green Lane Premier Inn Eltham is situated on the corner and the entrance to the car park is on Green Lane.
https://www.premierinn.com/gb/en/hotels/england/greater-london/london/london-eltham.html
