The club as a whole are in a really good place at the moment, says unbeaten table-topping Corinthian boss Michael Golding

Friday 09th October 2020

CORINTHIAN manager Michael Golding says the club is sitting in a good place at the moment.

The Fawkham based outfit sit proudly at the top of the Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division table with six wins out of six and are a couple of points clear of fellow unbeaten sides Tunbridge Wells and Chatham Town.

Corinthian make the trip to Thamesmead tomorrow to take on a Welling Town side that are in sixth-place with 13 points from their seventh games.

“Welling Town have started the season incredibly well considering they have played all seven games away from home thus far,” said Golding.

“Other than the past week, which I am sure they will be disappointed with, they have shown that they will be a team to be reckoned with this season and I think they will be amongst the group of seven or eight teams attempting to chasing down Sheppey and Chatham at the top of the table throughout the season.

“We are aware of their threats, which they possess plenty of and in Ryan Golding they have a man bang in form, so we will need to be at our best to stop him continuing his fine goalscoring record this year.”

Welling Town have suffered back-to-back defeats having lost 4-2 at Crowborough Athletic and 3-2 at Glebe. Striker Ryan Golding has scored 10 goals already this season.

Corinthian were knocked out of The FA Cup in the Second Qualifying Round last weekend, losing 1-0 at home to National League South side Hampton & Richmond Borough.

“We are pleased with our start this year, performances have not quite reached the level we expect, but results have been positive,” said Golding, the Corinthian manager that is.

“One of the targets we gave the squad was to start better than we had done in the previous two seasons and we are ahead of the points totals from those campaigns at this early stage, but fully aware we have a long way to go.

“The next run of fixtures will provide us with a tough test, with my pick to win the league Sheppey coming to The Farm next weekend.

“We have also equalled our best ever run in the FA Cup, which although we were disappointed to exit, we put up a spirited performance against higher-level opposition and on another day could have perhaps forced penalties had we taken one of our half chances.

“Having said that, Hampton deserved to win and we have looked back on the footage and identified areas that we need to work on to improve and hopefully we can implement these improvements over the coming weeks.

“All we can ask the squad to do is approach each game with the same honesty and application as they do every game and should we get this right, then it gives us a good chance of winning each game.

“We do not get ahead of ourselves; we know we are continuing to punch well above our weight and when you look at some of the sides around us, we know that the pressure is firmly on them to get promoted this season, not only because of the financial investment they have put into their squads but also the infrastructure and fan base they have.

“I would imagine anything less than automatic promotion for those sides would be deemed a failure this season.

“However, we know with being at the top of the table and having won each league game so far, that we now have a target on us and this is something new for us as a squad at such an early stage.

“Hopefully we can turn this into a positive and use it to enhance our performance levels, as we know we need to raise these levels if you want to achieve our goals this season.

“The club as a whole are in a really good place at the moment, we are averaging over 100 spectators per game for home matches, which two years ago and probably even last year would never have even been considered.

“The Suburban side managed by Jack Tebbutt have also had a positive start to the season, so we feel as though we are moving in the right direction as a collective.”


Welling Town v Corinthian
Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division
Saturday 10 October 2020
Kick Off 3:00pm
at Bayliss Avenue, Thamesmead, London SE28 8NJ