Cray Wanderers 1-2 Whitehawk - We're all frustrated tonight, it's going to spoil our weekend, admits Cray Wanderers assistant manager Mark Stimson

Cray Wanderers 1 – 2 Whitehawk
Location	Flamingo Park, Sidcup-by-pass, Chislehurst, Kent BR7 6HL
Kickoff	12/12/2025 19:45

CRAY WANDERERS  1-2  WHITEHAWK
Isthmian League Premier Division
Friday 12 December 2025
Stephen McCartney reports from Flamingo Park

CRAY WANDERERS assistant manager Mark Stimson says losing their fourth League game of the season is going to spoil his weekend.

The Wands took the lead through right-winger Lateef Adaja’s sixth goal of the season and they missed chances to double their lead during an open half but Tim O’Shea’s side put in a very poor second half performance that lead to their Brighton-based opponents claiming the victory to climb up five places in the Isthmian League Premier Division table.

Whitehawk came out with all guns blazing at the start of the second half and Shaun Saunders’ side scored twice, in the space of 75 seconds, through a clinically taken brace from attacking midfielder, Charlie Lambert, 25.

“I thought first half we played some good football. We were on the front foot. We scored a decent goal and had a great opportunity to make it 2-0,” said Stimson, who was sent out for post-match media duties by O’Shea.

“I’d like to see it back on the video to see if it was offside. It looked very close from where we were.

“I think if we go in at 2-0, then it might’ve been a different result at the end of it – but unfortunately it wasn’t.

“Whitehawk came out with nothing to lose.  They’ve sort of caught us cold.

“Yes it (our second half performance) surprised us because we were in total control first half.  They’ve scored the second one and then after that we didn’t get back to where we were in the first half, levels of passing the ball to each other.

“They were a typical Whitehawk side, hardworking, lot of senior players who know how to run the clock down and a couple of good individuals’, so we were expecting that type of side.

“First half we were excellent, apart from getting that second goal cushion that I thought we deserved.”

Whitehawk should have scored following their first of four corners after only 39 seconds.

Holding midfielder Andrew Briggs floated in a right-footed corner from the right towards the back post where unmarked centre-half Grant Hall saw his header from 14-yards sail over the crossbar.

Stimson said: “That was really early wasn’t it, so maybe someone switched off there but we had a great corner first half put in from Ralf (Hand) and we couldn’t get on the end of it.

“For us we’re disappointed because our first half was so powerful and second half sort of fizzled out.”

Whitehawk centre-half Nathan Cooper hit a long ball forward, the ball was flicked on by Lambert and fell to ineffective striker Harry Bridle, who cracked his right-footed volley past the near-post from 18-yards.

Cray Wanderers then started to gain control with Adaja impressing down the right and attacking midfielder Saul Kader linking up well with central striker Ralf Hand.

“They showed glimpses, they showed glimpses of the link-up.  Saul’s only been with us two weeks, so it might take a little bit longer but there were signs,” added Stimson, 57, who has previously managed Gillingham and Margate among others.

Hand stabbed a lay-off to Kader, who drilled his right-footed shot narrowly past the near-post on the angle from the right-hand corner of the Whitehawk penalty area (9:32).

The first half was being played at a high tempo and it was end-to-end and Cray Wanderers’ centre-half Remi Sutton drilled a long ball out of the left-back position, the ball was flicked on by quiet left-winger Freddie Price and Bromley loanee Kader drilled a right-footed drive from 25-yards, which stung the fingers of visiting goalkeeper Francis Hurl.

Home keeper Harry Seaden made a comfortable low save to his left to prevent Briggs scoring from a right-footed free-kick which went around the four-man wall (14:55).

“As you say, it’s a comfortable save for Harry. It probably looked a bit more threatening from the sidelines but we expect our goalkeeper to save that,” added Stimson.

Cray Wanderers went close to smashing the deadlock with 22:22 on the clock.

Left-back Frankie Morgan played the ball down the line to release Price, who reached the by-line and wrapped his left-foot around the ball to put in a cross, which was headed away.

The ball was recycled back into the box from within the right-channel by central midfielder Harry Waldock and Hand found a pocket of space at the near post to sweep his right-footed half-volley just past the foot of the near-post from three-yards.

A dominant Cray Wanderers kept knocking on the door and goalkeeper Seaden kicked the ball to Sutton, who travelled over the halfway line before slipping Price, who played the ball back to Sutton, who kept the ball in play by the touchline before putting in a cross and the ball was cleared out to Kader, who took a touch and his right-footed drive from 25-yards was tipped around the post by Hurl, diving to his right.

“Like I said, first half we were pleased. Again, without getting that second goal that you need sometimes just to kill teams off. If you don’t get that they come in at half-time, they re-group, they probably change the way they play a little bit and we didn’t get to the levels we were in the first half,” admitted Stimson.

Cray Wanderers deservedly opened the scoring with 30 minutes and 5 seconds on the clock, following a well-worked set-piece.

Hand played their first corner in from the left short to Price, who was in space to float a deep cross towards the back post where the unmarked Adaja hooked his left-footed volley into the bottom near corner from 12-yards on the angle.

Stimson said: “Good finish, good position to be in. We speak about that far-post position but no, great finish. Like I said, put us on the front foot.

“Lateef’s having a very good season. He also works very hard to coming back without the ball, does his defensive roles.

“He wasn’t feeling too well today to be honest. It was a gamble to play him and that’s why we had to take him off.  There were a couple of boys who got a bit of this sickness bug that’s going around.

“Quade (Taylor) was struggling today but he sat on the bench first half and came on in the second half for us.”

Whitehawk right-back Stefan Wright attempted to line up a long throw but it failed to beat the first man at the near post and the ball was cleared out to unmarked central-midfielder Charlie Harris, who switched the ball out to centre-half Hall, who cut the ball onto his right-foot and his 18-yard angled drive was comfortably saved in Seaden’s midriff.

Cray Wanderers should have buried a glorious chance (44:54) when Hall had his pocket picked by Hand some 35-yards from goal and Hand drove forward and instead of having a go himself he played in Kader, who slid the ball into the bottom left-hand corner but Liam Dawson raised his offside flag.

“We nick the ball off them, Ralph went through and decided to slot it to Saul and the linesman’s given offside.  I’d like to see it on the video because we didn’t think it was offside,” claimed Stimson.

“They’re fine margines aren’t they? We go in at 2-0, it could’ve been different but it’s not and we just have to reshape for this Christmas period.”

Whatever O’Shea and Stimson told their players during the half-time interval was completely ignored by their players as Cray Wanderers came out and put in an awful performance that lacked desire and hardly troubled Whitehawk’s centre-halves Cooper and Hall and Hurl was a spectator.

“Half-time was to try to maintain the standard we’ve set and it was hard to because it was so good and just stay focused but obviously that went out of the window within minutes of the second half,” admitted Stimson.

Whitehawk brought on Destiny Ojo (wide right) and changed the momentum of the game, as the home side brought off Waldock and on came Quade Taylor in midfield, which proved to be a tactical mistake.

Taylor switched to centre-half in the 76^th minute (replacing Sutton) and striker Chris Dickson came on and did nothing, like many of his team-mates.

“Remi Sutton came off and he’s someone from the back comes out and joins in really well. We didn’t have that option so we went a little bit direct in the end.

“Remi’s done something to his shoulder, so we’ll have to wait and see over the next 24-48 hours how serious that is.

“PK (Prosper Keto) is out at the moment with a hip problem.”

Briggs pinged a diagonal and the impressive Ojo skipped past Morgan and got into the right-channel and put in a great cross towards the near-post where Lambert swept his right-footed volley over the crossbar from inside the six-yard box, as Cray Wanderers’ right-back Adrian O’Gyamera got across and did just enough to put off the Whitehawk attacker (4:37).

“Yes, that was probably two full-backs there, one first phase of it didn’t do too well but the second phase of it, OB (O’Gyamera) done fantastic to get back there and your full back’s defending.”

Whitehawk enjoyed a spell of keep ball and restored parity with seven minutes and 59 seconds on the clock.

Ojo weaved his magic and cut inside and switched the play over to Lambert, who cut inside and drilled a low right-footed drive across and underneath the diving Seaden to find the bottom far corner of the goal from 16-yards.

“Again, I think the ball got out to the lad too easy and when it got out to him we were trying to keep him on the outside but he’s cut in onto his stronger foot and whipped it and it’s gone in beyond Harry and was obviously frustrating,” said Stimson, who was then asked whether his goalkeeper should have saved it.

“Again, you look at it on the video and then you sort of make the correct decision on that. It’s so easy to say ‘yes or no’ now but we’ll watch it on the video and look at it back.

“Knowing Harry, it would’ve been a gooden because he’s not liable to make those sort of mistakes.”

Whitehawk scored the winning goal just 75 seconds later (9:14) when the home side lost the ball inside the centre-circle to Lambert, who drove straight down the heart of the pitch - easily going through three Cray Wanderers defenders - and clinically rolled his right-footed shot past the advancing Seaden into the bottom left-hand corner to score his 13^th goal of the season.

“Their second goal was similar situation to our one in the first half, which was ruled out for offside. i.e . what I mean by that, the guy ran straight through on goal, their guy’s taken responsibility and finished it and it’s gone in whereas our guy ran towards the goalkeeper and squared it and unfortunately it was ruled offside,” said Stimson.

Cray Wanderers fell apart and Seaden made amends by tipping over Harris’ right-footed hooked effort from inside the D as Whitehawk came out in dominant fashion (11:01) at the start of the second half.

“The shots were from distance so we’ve had a couple of shots but we’ve had a couple of balls put across the box where we need to get on the end of them but theirs have hit the target, rightly so you’ve made notes of that but our ball’s going in across the box were better chances but we didn’t get on the end of it,” added Stimson.

Harris then played a diagonal pass along the artificial turf to Lambert – who easily cut on the outside of O’Gyamera (who had opened the gate by not attempting to tackle him) but his right-footed rasping drive from 22-yards was plucked out of the air above Seaden’s head at his near-post (15:41).

There was to be no reaction from Cray Wanderers’ players, despite all five substitutes coming on and making no impact on the game whatsoever.

Even holding midfielder Frankie Raymond’s left-footed passes towards a high Morgan were overhit and a couple of balls into the left-channel went behind for goal-kicks.

The second half performance from the home side wasn’t one of a team chasing for a play-off place into the sixth-tier Enterprise National League South.

“Second half for us is disappointing because we’re up, we’re thinking we’re going in the right direction and on the second goal sometimes that happens.  You’ve just got to reset and go again but we didn’t seem to do that.

“Taking Remi Sutton off, not taking Remi Sutton off, Remi Sutton had to come off, that’s a threat for us because he comes out with the ball so well, left-side centre-half.”

Whitehawk went close to adding a third following their third corner (38:05) when Briggs floated the ball in from the right towards the edge of the penalty area and Cooper held his head in agony as his sublime right-footed hooked volley was blocked by the crowd of players to prevent the ball nestling into the top far corner.

The board for seven additional minutes went up – the referee Joseph Gray ended up playing 10 minutes and 25 seconds of stoppage time at the end of the second half as Whitehawk’s players kept going down with knocks, including Cooper, Lambert and Bridle.

Cray Wanderers – the draw specialists with 11 already this season – just never looked like scoring.  The closest came (53:32) when Morgan whipped in a deflected angled cross from just outside the corner of the penalty area which flashed past the far post.

To sum it up, with barely seconds to go, O’Gyamera had one last chance to throw the ball upfield from close to the half-way line – but chose to threw it back to his goalkeeper. Most of the 602 crowd had long vacated the stadium by this point. Modern day footballers, playing the safe backward or sideways ball instead of taking risks.

“That’s right, we couldn’t get that 12^th draw,” added Stimson

“We don’t want that 12^th draw, we want to try to get some more wins and like you said, if those draws, if we would’ve won half of them and lost half of them, we’d have more points, so what we’ve got to try and do now is make sure that we go into next weekend and try to claw back the three points we’ve lost tonight.”

Jay Saunders’ Folkestone Invicta – who humiliated Cray Wanderers 8-1 at Cheriton Road four weeks ago, before the Wands went on a four-match unbeaten run - are at the summit of this seventh-tier division, having picked up 48 points from their 19 of 42 games.

Cray Wanderers missed the chance to climb into fourth place had they won tonight and have slipped down a place after Aveley were held to a 3-3 draw at home to Billericay Town tonight.

Brentwood Town (40 points from 21 games), Chatham Town (37 points from 19), Adrian Pennock’s Dartford (34 points from 21) and Aveley (32 points from 18) are in the play-off zone.

The top eight are made up with Cray Wanderers (22 points – seven wins, 11 draws and four defeats) from 22 games), Burgess Hill Town (30 points from 20) and Dulwich Hamlet (30 points from 21), while Whitehawk now lie in eleventh-place with 27 points (seven wins, six draws and eight defeats) from 21 games.

Cray Wanderers face a 12:30 kick-off away to Wingate & Finchley next Saturday, 20 January.

Their hosts go into tomorrow’s card in thirteenth-place in the table, having picked up 26 points (seven wins, five draws and seven defeats) from their 19 games.

The Wands have drawn seven of their 11 League games on the road this season and looking forward to their trip to Summers Lane, Stimson replied: “Difficult game, good side, good side Wingate.  They’re type of football that some people say is attractive.

“We’ve just got to make sure that we’re right defensively but also we’ve spoken about it so much, we sound like a broken record. When we get our chances we have to start taking it because if we do we will win a lot more games but everyone knows that’s the hardest bit in football, is to finish it. That’s the specialists’ as such.

“But we keep working on it in training. We’re doing loads of finishing and shooting and crossing drills. We will do more again Tuesday and Thursday and go there looking for three points.”

When asked about not delivering for their fourth largest crowd of the season, Stimson apologised, adding, “That’s frustrating because you want to send our own supporters’ home with a win before Christmas and hopefully they’ll come back again. We’d like to thank all of them trying out tonight because it’s a cold one, sorry we haven’t given you a Christmas present.

“We’ll try to make up for it in the New Year. Please come back and support this club because it’s going in the right direction.

“We’re all frustrated tonight. It’s going to spoil our weekend but we’ll dust ourselves down and look to go on next week.”

When asked to reflect on their League position tonight, Stimson replied: “At the moment because of the amount of games we’ve played and (every single one of the) other teams have got games-in-hand, it’s a very, very good start. Now we’ve got to kick on .

“It’s alright starting like this but the next 10 games now are really important because if you do it properly and get your results, the last nine after that are really exciting but if you don’t do it properly in the next 10, all the hard work we’ve already done is worth nothing.

“We’ve just mentioned that to the boys in there. The next 10 games are so vital. We’ve got to try and get as many wins as possible. When the chances come, take them.”

When asked how his players’ are feeling after losing their four-match unbeaten run and losing only their second game in their last eight, Stimson added: “They’re like us, they’re frustrated, they're disappointed because we wanted to win tonight.  We want to win every game and when you start off so well in a game and control the game and create chances, not to get anything from it, it is those two words, disappointed and frustrated – but we’ve got to put it behind us now unfortunately and move on.”

Cray Wanderers: Harry Seaden, Adrian O’Gyamera, Frankie Del Morgan, Frankie Raymond, Remi Sutton (Chris Dickson 76), Harry Revill, Freddie Price (Kareem Isiaka 83), Harry Waldock (Quade Taylor 46), Saul Kader, Ralf Hand (Alex Hernandez 65), Lateef Adaja (Ashley Nzala 69).

Goal: Lateef Adaja 31

Booked: Saul Kader 65

Whitehawk: Francis Hurl, Stefan Wright, Hugo Odogwu-Atkinson, Andrew Briggs, Nathan Cooper, Grant Hall, Joel Daly, Harry Bridle (Jerson Dos Santos 90), Charlie Lambert (Joe Overy 88), Florian Kastrati (Destiny Ojo 46)
Subs: Archie McGonigle, Oscar Lambie

Goals: Charlie Lambert 53, 54

Booked: Joel Daly 24, Destiny Ojo 65, Charlie Harris 67, Harry Bridle 90

Attendance: 602
Referee: Mr Joseph Gray
Assistants: Mr Liam Dawson & Mr Jonathan Marsh