Ahead of TheGame: Welling needed a change of direction

In today's e-mail bulletin, Mark Doig asks: "Andy Ford resigned as manager of Welling United after defeat in the FA Cup at Dover about a month ago. Since then Lee Protheroe, who was his assistant, has stood in as caretaker player/manager. Welling have now appointed Jamie Day as manager. What has happened at the club and will this appointment affect the club's future?"

Walter Gammie, our non-league expert, responded: "Welling United are a classic case of a club who soared to heights of which Graham and Barrie Hobbins could hardly have dreamt when they were launched in parks football by Sydney Hobbins, their father, in 1963. They spent 14 seasons in the Conference between 1986 and 2000. And, naturally, everything that is now taking place at Park View Road is judged in the light of those glory years. The problem for Welling is that the footballing landscape has since changed dramatically.

"There seems little prospect of a club with a limited fan base regaining their previous status in a league that has become dominated by well-supported ex-Football League clubs since the Conference won the right to two-up, two-down promotion and relegation in 2002-03. The experienced Andy Ford, who established a fellow Kent club, Gravesend and Northfleet - now Ebbsfleet United - in the Conference in a memorable seven-year spell, was called in to preserve Welling's place in the Blue Square South in January 2008. He did so, took them to seventh last season but increasingly found, in the difficult financial climate, that pushing the club higher was an unenviable and frustrating task.

"It sounded like a fresh direction was needed. And Welling clearly hope that by appointing Jamie Day, a 30-year-old who had been playing for Dartford in the Ryman League, that they will be given renewed impetus. If you are going to appoint a first-time manager, the club clearly believe that you could not do much better than a man who knows the place inside out from his own playing days there and had his early schooling at Arsenal. And he can still play a bit, too."

And as England prepare to play Brazil in a friendly on Saturday, we also report on Wayne Rooney's call to his England team-mates to help improve the national team's performances against the world's best sides.

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