Jenkins faces Cup Final selection dilemma

IAN JENKINS has revealed his playing budget has been cut as Cray Wanderers save the pennies to build their new ground, writes Stephen McCartney.

The long-serving Jenkins guided the club to the Ryman League Division One South play-off final but one of his former players, Paul “Charlie” Vines scored the only goal of the game for Tooting & Mitcham, who sealed promotion with champions Dover Athletic.

The Wands won their opening pre-season friendly last Thursday evening, beating their Kent League neighbours Holmesdale 4-2 at Langley Park Sports & Social club in Beckenham.

Jenkins fielded 26 players during the game but would like to keep some of the trialists that impressed him, but revealed that money is tight.

“We’re going for the ground so (chairman and vice-chairman) Gary (Hillman) and John (Woolfe) have got to save a bit of money for that so if it comes off, then it will be brilliant," he told www.kentishfootball.co.uk.

“It’s going through hopefully , it’s all about purchasing the land and then the planning goes in, but it’s a few years down the line so whether I’ll still be at the club, I don’t know. 2014, they reckon.”

Jenkins, however, approaches the Kent Senior Cup Final with Ebbsfleet United with trepidation.

The Hayes Lane showpiece final, for Saturday, 26^th July, was put back from last season due to the Fleet reaching the FA Carlsberg Trophy Final last season.

Jenkins and his counterpart Liam Daish can only play players that would have been eligible for last season’s competition, I.e. any new players that they’ve signed during the close season, and players no longer at their clubs, cannot play.

That leaves Jenkins with a selection headache.

“We’ve got five players out from the current squad that have signed already for this year,” he revealed.

“Steve Aris, Glen Knight, Jamie Wood, Ryan Royston and one other and we’ve lost Ross Lover and Michael Power to Welling, so there’s seven all together.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do. We just have to ring the Kent County Football Association up and find out what we can do about it.”

Jenkins, meanwhile, will sit down with the 26 players that he played against Holmesdale last week to discuss their futures.

“It’s got to be soon or it won’t be fair on the players,” he said.

“You can’t have players hanging about for too long and all of a sudden have no clubs for the season, so within the next week or week and a half I’ll have it whittled down to about eighteen or nineteen and we’ll go from there.”

Cray Wanderers’ pre-season campaign continues on Tuesday night with a trip to last season’s Kent League runners-up, VCD Athletic.

Vickers play at Old Road in Crayford and the game kick's off at 7:30pm.

Visit Cray Wanderers website: www.craywands.co.uk