Cray Wanderers are in Kent Senior Cup action on Wednesday, 5th October and for the second straight year they have been drawn against the holders of the competition.  Dartford won the Cup for the eleventh time in the history of this long running tournament back in May when they beat the then holders Charlton Athletic 3-1 in the final at Princes Park.  Kick off at Hayes Lane is 7.45pm.  The winners of the tie will be away to Welling United in the second round.  

Admission prices are £10.00 adults, £4.00 concessions/U16s/Students on presentation of card.  Season Tickets are not valid for this match.

Although Cray are likely to field some of their younger players for this game, Dartford always take the competition seriously and are likely to send over a very experienced team.

Cray in the league have started to run into good form with three straight wins but now take in a couple of cup games over the next few days.  There were reals signs against Molesey on Saturday that Cray were really starting to crank up the gears and the 3-0 win certainly didn’t flatter the visitors.  The Wands sit sixth in the table after 11 games and a continuation of that form over the next few weeks will keep Cray up there with the leading teams.

Many of the Cray team who will play on Wednesday have already performed well in league and cup matches this season and the likes of Jai McKinlay, Timi Osidobu, Anthony Adesite, Ben Mundele and Max Williams have made positive contributions and will not look out of place against their more higher ranked opponents.   

Tony Burman’s Dartford side have made a good start to their Conference South season and are currently seventh in the table, nine points behind the leaders Maidenhead United.  They come into the game on the back of a dramatic FA cup win as a last minute winner sent the Darts through at Slough Town to an intriguing looking 4th Qualifying Round tie at Tonbridge Angels.

Wands fans will recall some good battles with Dartford particularly in cup ties, in Kent League games for three seasons in the mid 90’s,  and most recently in the Ryman South and Premier.  There has always been a friendly rivalry between the two clubs though and this should continue under the lights at Hayes Lane on Wednesday evening.  It was the Wands that helped Dartford in the 90’s get back on a sound footing with allowing a ground sharing arrangement at Oxford Road.

Dartford have always been one of Kent’s best supported clubs and were members of the Southern League for years and had one season in the Alliance Premier League (now National League) before financial problems in the early 90’s put the clubs future at risk.  They emerged through it via the Supporters Association financing a rebirth and they restarted out of the Southern League and into the Kent League where they ground shared with Cray at Oxford Road for one season.  They seemed to move around grounds regularly and played at Erith and Belvedere, Thurrock and Ebbsfleet before they moved back to Dartford for the first time since 1992 at their new state of the art Princes Park in November 2006. 

Since then they were promoted from the Ryman South in 2007-08 and two seasons later as champions of the Ryman Premier.  Their meteoric rise continued another two seasons later as in 2011-12 they reached the Conference South playoff final and a 1-0 win against Welling United promoted the Darts to the Conference for only the second time.  They stayed there for three seasons finishing eighth 2012-13 but were relegated in 2014-15.  Last season they finished eighth in the National South and won the Kent Senior Cup once again.

The teams have met many times in the history of the Kent Senior Cup with Dartford having the better of the series.  The last meeting in this competition came in 2005 with Dartford winning 3-1. The last time time they met competitively was in the FA Cup 3rd Qualifying Round in 2011 with Dartford winning 2-1 at Hayes Lane.

It will be a tough test for Tony Russell’s side as Dartford are a good side who can beat anyone on their day