CRAWFORD PLANS FOR RETURN TO TOP FLIGHT

DARREN Crawford is taking the long view as he plots Wellington Rec’s path “back to where they belong.”

It’s 10 years now since the Brookvale outfit played their football in the Premier Division, with the intervening decade one peppered with relegation and instability as a host of managers came and went.

Since 2017, the Amateur League’s basement Intermediate division has been home for the harbour men, with two of those three campaigns in 1C spent fending off relegation down into the Junior ranks.

But there’s a sense around the place that their downward slide could be coming to an end, and not just because of a four-game winning streak up to and including Saturday’s 5-0 Intermediate Cup demolition of Downshire.

Crawford, who spent eight seasons playing for the club, is a coach with contacts following spells working with the youth and development squads at Crusaders and Larne respectively.

Off the field too, the club appears in rude health, all of which feeds into the feeling that better days are ahead.

But Crawford knows they must learn to walk before they can run, with Saturday’s trip to highly-rated Plunkett offering an early opportunity to see what kind of level his young side need to reach.

“Obviously Saturday there was a good result but we’ll not be getting carried away,” said the Wellington boss.

“We’re still in a transition scenario, there’s a lot of good work going on in the background with youth teams and our team is very, very young.

“At the start of the season, we were not so great but the last few weeks we have seen an improvement.

“I’ve brought in some quality players and 1 to

11, we’re quite strong, it’s just about building that out.

“But we’re under no illusions, and we have Plunkett here on Saturday which is going to be a really tough match.

“With young players, you get ups and downs, but certainly the club is looking to climb back up the leagues as quickly as possible.

“The infrastructure is in place, the pitch is in fantastic condition, there are great people at the club who can be the catalyst for that but there’s a long way to go.

“It’s nice to get a couple of results after the start we had but there’s a lot of work to be done.

“I’ve brought the old manager in as my righthand man, Jeff Carmichael; Kenny Thompson is the chairman of the club, a football man, so there’s a good backbone and now it’s about me trying to use the contacts I have in football to get the club back where it belongs.”