Cray Wanderers face the first of a double header of home matches on Saturday 19th November as Chipstead are the visitors to Hayes Lane.  Kick off is 3pm.  This will be followed on Wednesday evening with a match against Horsham.

The Wands produced one of their best performances of the season against Worthing in the FA Trophy on Sunday but just fell short and their cup adventures for the season came to an end.  After falling two behind, Cray had a strong last forty minutes and came close to grabbing a replay with Danny Haynes, Brandon Scott and Ben Mundele all unlucky not to score. 

The performances of Mundele and Scott were particularly eye catching and Brandon has spent a week on trial at League One, Fleetwood Town and there are big days ahead for him that is for sure. 

With the cup run now over Cray will be looking to get their league form back on track after three games without a win, although in their last game they did show good character to come from two down to draw with Whyteleafe.  The Wands start the game in seventh place on 28 points and are five points behind fifth placed Hythe Town.  With the top three, Dorking Wanderers, Tooting and Mitcham United and Carshalton Athletic having good wins in the week it is imperative for Cray to get a run going to prevent slipping too far behind them.  With so many games in the season still to go the Wands are still in a good position and having at one time this season won five games in a row, a similar run is not out of the question.

Our visitors on Saturday, Chipstead are 19th in the league table with 18 points from 19 games and are five points clear of the bottom three.   Anthony Williams’ side have won two of their last four games with a 1-0 win at Ramsgate and an impressive 4-1 win at home to Walton Casuals.  They have also won at Carshalton earlier in the season. However, their last game ended in a 0-7 defeat at home to Tooting and Mitcham United who as Cray can testify are a very good side.  A player to watch could be Raheem Sterling-Parker who has scored eleven goals this season for the Chips.

Cray supporters may remember games against Chipstead in our last stint in the Isthmian League South.  Chipstead were promoted for the first time in 2006-07 as champions of the Combined Counties League.   The Banstead based club have been mainstays of the Isthmian South ever since and faced Cray in 2007-08 and 2008-09 with the Wands having a 100% record having won all four meetings. 

The last time the two teams met was on 17th March 2009 during our promotion season when a solitary Mark Willy goal was enough to give Cray a 1-0 win that evening.

Cray have been involved in some excellent games at Hayes Lane this season and there is no reason why this shouldn’t be another.

Admission prices are £10.00 adults, £4.00 concessions/U16s.