Struggling Welling rejoice at toppling league leaders

Andy Ford stood with arms aloft in delight at the final whistle to celebrate Welling United’s 1-0 victory over Eastbourne Borough, the Blue Square South leaders, at Park View Road yesterday.

The victory may prove crucial to Welling’s hopes of survival and encouraged the former long-serving manager of Gravesend & Northfleet to believe that he might not have been crazy to take the job as he felt after his first match in charge last month, which Welling lost 6-2 at home to Cambridge City. “I thought ‘bloody hell – have I got the magic left in me?’,” he said.

Yesterday’s match was a tight-fought affair. The winning goal was scored by Richard Carpenter from the penalty spot in the 87th minute, with Lee Hook in the Borough goal diving the right way and getting a hand to the ball but being undone by the power of Carpenter’s strike. The penalty was won by Ellis Green, who cut into the area and was brought down by Matt Smart. As temperatures rose in a heated finale, Green engaged in a needless shoving match on the touchline, escaped with a booking and was immediately brought off by Ford and Phil Handford, his assistant.

The performances of Green, on the right, and Orlando Smith, on the opposite flank, illustrated one of Ford’s problems: he has inherited two young players with raw talent that is probably not best developed in a relegation battle. “There’s a lot of difference playing in this league,” he said. “Ellis has got two or three players around him all the time. He’s got to learn that when that happens, there’s a lot of space somewhere else. Having said that, he runs at people and gets penalties, so you’ve got to get a bit of both.”

Welling played with Sam Gargan, on loan from Brighton & Hove Albion, as a lone striker, a move that has been largely forced upon Ford. “When you come in to do a job, you ask yourself ‘do I do change things dramatically or do I do it bit by bit?’ I haven’t had much luck. I’ve tried to sign two centre forwards in the past month – one of them has made one substitute appearance and was injured, the other I signed last week and he got injured in his last game for his previous club. We are in need of another forward.

“A few years ago if what has happened – players suspended, a goalkeeper getting injured, sendings-off, which are all part of football – I would have been really a lot more stressed but I’m experienced enough now to say ‘right  let’s shut the door on one day and go into the next fresh again’.”

Ford believes that the signs are promising. “We’re moving forward, but we’re moving forward like a cruise liner rather than a speedboat ploughing forward to instant success,” he said. “We’re making it hard for teams to play us, which is what you want when you’re in a relegation battle. You can’t go out and attack teams – we’ve put in some good battling performances.”

Welling’s next home match is against St Albans City, relegated from the Conference last season and in danger of a second successive relegation. “St Albans have signed a lot of experienced players and appear to be turning things round, so we have try to drag down more teams above us into trouble,” Ford said.  “This has been a big club, a Conference club. It’s been allowed to dwindle a little bit but it would be a disaster if it dropped into the Ryman League. It’s a big job and I think we’ve taken a couple of paces forward in the past three weeks. We need to keep that our place in the Conference South, get a couple of things sorted out off the pitch and then really start moving forward again.”

WALTER GAMMIE