South East Counties Women's Football League Kent Division One West, Sunday 4th February
I made the trip over to New Eltham, on the outskirts of Cray on Sunday to be part of an historic day for Cray Wanderers as the club, who have been homeless since 1973 were finally given planning permission to build a state of the art 3G facility on their Flamingo Park site back in November 2018, and after a few issues they have finally reached Phase One of the new facility coming to fruition by hosting a game on the pitch after five months of building work.
The ground is far from finished, and to quote Cray CEO Sam Wright 'It looks like a bomb has hit it' and they still have to construct and install the stands, turnstiles & toilets, so we were all warned that if we were expecting to turn up to a shiny new ground then they were certainly not at that phase yet, however the pitch is all there along with installed floodlights in each corner, dugouts on half way line & the pitch is all fenced off and ready for some action, and those pieces of the jigsaw certainly look decent I must say. Picturing it with all the stands etc up certainly made me think this would be a very decent facility indeed.
Now amazingly (and I found this out recently) Cray Wanderers have never actually owned their own home in their entire history, and they are entering their 164th year as a club (they are the oldest football club in London by the way) so this is a big big thing for the club, to finally own their own home and have such a brilliant set up as well, the old clubhouse behind one of the goals is spacious and has a nice bar which sells some lovely food and drink (the bacon rolls were marvellous by the way!!!).
Now the women's side would be the ones who were to get the first action on this new pitch, which seemed quite fitting as prior to this season Cray Wanderers had never had a women's team in their 163 year history, but that all changed this season and they are enduring quite a season so far, sitting top of the South East Counties League Kent Division One West having won nine of their ten league games and only dropping two points all season.
Their opponents on this momentous day were Oakwood, who are from Crawley in West Sussex, so not to far for them to travel, and they were probably thrilled to be part of this history making day as well, although they were going to have their work cut out to get anything from the game, the two sides had already met this season back in October when Cray ran out 3-0 winners courtesy of goals from Chloe Ashdown, Millie Main & Jessica Oldfield, and all three were to have heavy involvements in the current game too.
The visitors were having a mixed campaign so far too, seven league games had yielded four wins and three losses which saw them in midtable, and they came into this contest off the back of a 1-0 loss at Danson Sports, who are on the same number of points as them now following that result, but this would be a whole new level although they may well have been galvanised by playing on such a brand new facility and in front of a healthy crowd who had turned up to also be part of this history making day.
Now Cray had netted eight, eight and six in their last three league wins, all at home, so they were expected to score some goals in this contest too on the new pitch, who would be the first person to score on the new facility and create some history for themselves, well thankfully for the hosts it was one of their players, and we didn't have to wait long either, as with less than three minutes in the clock Ashdown, who netted in the corresponding fixture of course, fire home a brilliant effort from the edge of the box and hand Cray the perfect start in this one.
Oakwood must of feared the worst after that, and to be honest if it wasn't for their keeper Beckie Kirkham, the score line would have been greater for sure, her positing and bravery and shot stopping was immense and she denied the hosts on several occasions throughout the contest, and even when she was beaten the crossbar came to the visitors rescue.
Ashdown, Main & Katie Jackson all caused the visitors issues with their attacking prowess, along with Oldfield as mentioned earlier, the visitors, especially second half, did complete much better and defend a lot better as they made it tough going for the hosts who really needed that second goal to make the game safe, I was very impressed with visitors centre half Jade Dancaster and also midfielder Darbie Hughes, the latter certainly got stuck in and I really loved that.
But it was their keeper who was their player of the match for sure, but even she could do nothing about the second goal for the hosts when it eventually came in the 76th minute, Main struck an effort at goal which took a touch off her teammate Hannah Atkins and this proved decisive in taking the ball past Kirkham and into the bottom corner, I initially thought it was Main's goal, and she certainly deserved after a superb performance, but the goal was given to Atkins as she did get the final touch according to others.
The bottom line was it was 2-0 and game set and match, and the hosts could go on and record yet another win in their charge for the title and promotion in their first season, ten wins from eleven now in the division and a one point lead over second placed Petts Wood with a couple of games in hand to boot, things are looking food for the ladies then, and things are certainly looking up for the club as a whole, this was a big tick in their box today, and their are many more to come no doubt, I was certainly pleased to be their today and be part of their historic moment, and I will look forward to coming back when even more has been done to the facility.
Full time Cray Wanderers 2 Oakwood 0
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