We need to stick away our chances, says Faversham Town coach Clive Walker

FAVERSHAM TOWN assistant manager Clive Walker admits goalscoring has been a problem during the first three months of the season, writes Stephen McCartney.


The Lilywhites lie in fourteenth place in the Ryman League Division One South table with four wins and two draws from their ten league outings, but they have only scored ten league goals so far.

They came away from Folkestone Invicta with a point following a goal-less draw at Cheriton Road at the weekend, having been knocked out of the Kent Senior Cup (Sponsored by Portablefloodlights.com) by Neil Cugley’s men with a 3-2 extra time defeat on home soil the previous Tuesday.

Walker said: “I thought it was a good result for us.   It’s not the easiest place to play.  I thought we did well really.

“Well, it depends how you look at it really. I didn’t think we were too bad quite honestly.  I know we played for two hours a few days’ before, but it was a good point for us.

“It’s not easy there, winning at Folkestone is not easy!”

Thirteenth-placed Merstham arrive at Salters Lane on Tuesday night with the same playing record as Ray Turner’s side.

“Well, we really need to get three points so it pushes up right up the table a bit,” said Walker.

“There’s only a few teams playing this midweek so we’re looking to get three points out of it and push up the league - but no game’s easy. 

“We’ve got games in hand.  We’ve not had many games.  We seem to be having Cup games recently, we’ve got a Cup match on Saturday.”

Faversham welcome East Thurrock United to Salters Lane in the Second Qualifying Round of The FA Carlsberg Trophy.

The Essex side booked their place in the FA Cup with Budweiser First Round and will welcome League Two side Macclesfield Town the following weekend.

“We’ve had them watched, they’ll be a strong side, they always are, East Thurrock,” warned Walker.

“They’re in the FA Cup the week after aren’t they.”

Walker hopes Faversham are playing East Thurrock (third-from-bottom in the Ryman Premier League) at the right time as their players may have one eye on their FA Cup tie.

“That depends on the players you’ve got in your club,” replied Walker.  “I don’t think it always works like that.  It seems to but I don’t think it always does.

“It will not be an easy game. We really need to be on our game to progress on that.

“It was a good result for them at Bedford Town, which is not easy, away from home.”

Walker, meanwhile, insists there is more to come from his side.

“We had a very hard start and hard away matches, which has proved right as they’re all at the top of the league,” he said.

“Since then we’ve picked up, we’re playing well.  We’d like to score more goals, obviously, but we do look a strong outfit.  I think we’ll be a handful for anybody in that league.”

Walker wants his strikers to convert the chances that are created.

He admitted: “That’s been a problem.  We’ve probably lost points for not scoring goals to be honest as we’re not bad defensively, but that’s one of those things.

“On another day we could hit somebody for six.  We could do with a 25-30 goals a season man but if we had one he wouldn’t be here for long so it’s a vicious circle.  Everyone’s looking at them.  At these levels when you get a good striker you can’t keep them as everyone’s looking at them.

“We’ll just keep going.  We’re creating a lot of chances, that’s the good thing.  We’re getting in wide positions and creating chances.  We just need to stick them away. It will be a big lift to the strikers.  We had a 5-3 (win) against Walton Casuals.  We took a lot of good chances but we need to be doing that more regularly that’s football isn’t it?”

Visit Faversham Town’s website: www.favershamtownfc.co.uk  

Faversham Town  v  Merstham
Ryman League Division One South
Tuesday 1^st November 2011
Kick Off 7:45pm
At Salters Lane, Faversham, Kent ME13 8ND