Big guns return for VCD - EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Long-serving VCD Athletic boss Martin Ford takes his side to Lordswood tomorrow grateful to the Medway outfit for keeping his club in the Kent League, writes Stephen McCartney.

The Vickers have played four games at their revamped Oakwood ground in Crayford this season, having groundshared at Thamesmead Town, Lordswood and Greenwich Borough during their eight-year exile.

Ford’s men moved into third place in the table following their comfortable 3-0 win over struggling Erith Town last night, but Ford insists his side will have more of a chance of challenging for the title once his big players return.

“Lordswood have been fantastic for us,” Ford said EXCLUSIVELY to www.kentishfootball.co.uk last night.

“I go on record all the time to say we’ve got Lordswood to thank for really staying in the Kent League for a couple of season’s that we went there.

“They made us extremely welcome and we won’t forget the favour they done.”

But Ford is expecting a different type of opposition from Paul Piggott’s side.

“I am expecting a different game than tonight,” Ford said. “Lordswood are going to be more in our face and the pitch isn’t the greatest down there, that’s no disrespect to them, but we have to go there and it’s going to be more of a battle.

“Erith Town tried to outplay us with football and maybe that was their undoing really. Sides that come here and have a little go face to face and try to do a lot better than what sides who try to pass us which Erith couldn’t do I don’t think.

“They persevered for an hour with one person up front. Allright it stifled our midfield a little bit but at the end of the day we had enough quality about us to pass it round, even though thy had five in there, the four lads in there worked extremely hard.”

Despite winning courtesy of goals from Brad Ryan (43), Darren Thomson (21 seconds into the second half) and Paul Foley (53), VCD Athletic’s talented midfielder Marc Merridan was taken to hospital for X-rays with a broken arm to add to the long missing list.

“We’re trying to pull players in but I’m trying to bide my time with signing players because maybe a week or so tie when we’ve got the likes of Lee Coburn, Stuart Abbott and Kevin Winchcombe and them sort of players back we’ll be looking at can we do other things,” said Ford, whose used 28 players so far this season.

When asked if his side can win the title, Ford said: “I think I’ll be foolish to say that, there’s a lot of good sides in it.

“Thamesmead are going to be there or there abouts, someone’s got to beat Whitstable sooner rather than later so we just have to hang in there.

“We just need to stick in there like we have done. If we pick up maximum points at Lordswood, I’m confident that Stuart Abbott should be with us next week, Danny Penny looks like he’s another 7-10 days away so hopefully we’ll have him on board.

“Lee Coburn’s only 10 days away from finishing his suspension so it’s three big players there for me.

“We’re hopeful Kevin Winchcombe whose serving the first of three games will be back so his suspension has come at the right time.

“So you’re looking at half our side. If we can get them four back playing then we don’t need to go out and sign players.

“We tried to sign a centre forward this week but we’ll keep looking to see if we can sign players to improve the team.”

The club suffered from a lack of standing cover at their £150,000 revamped Oakwood ground, as a crowd of 122 watched their game against the Dockers last night.

A downpour an hour or so before kick-off put off many fans, but Ford admitted all support is welcomed.

He said: “This time last year we were playing at Greenwich Borough in front of 22 people so if we got another 100 paying customers through the gate, it’s another £600 revenue for us but we’re thankful of being at home.”