Cray Wanderers manager Neil Smith on life in Isthmian Premier, financial constraints after moving into their new Flamingo Park ground and the parallels with Bromley

Cray Wanderers boss Neil Smith has admitted keeping the club up this season is his biggest challenge in management.

Former Welling and Bromley manager Smith has his work cut out as the club start life in their impressive new home at Flamingo Park.

They’ve just equalled their best-ever FA Cup run but the focus now turns to putting league points on the board.

“I’ve been there before in terms of challenges and this is the biggest I’ve ever had,” revealed Smith, whose side sit bottom of Isthmian Premier, albeit with games in hand.

“I was in Conference South when I went to Bromley and then in the Conference National with the funding. Here, you’ve got four guys and they’re putting their own money in. You get the pitch and now we’ve got to make sure we earn money from it to pay for it.

“Early on in the season, if I’m going to be brutally honest, we weren’t good enough but now we’re getting better. We’re acquiring a squad that is capable of putting a run of results together.

“The teams around us lost on Saturday and although we’re two games behind some of them, we’ve just got to win the next one and go from there.

“I’d be more worried if we were bottom of the league and had played 37. We’ve only played seven games and have still got 39 games to go.

“We’ll give it a good shift and it means if I’ve got to change the squad around then I’ve got enough time to change it around. We played one league game in September and now we’ve got all these games to fill in, it can work for you or against you.”

Cray start a run of three home games when they host Chatham on Tuesday night.

Smith is operating with a limited budget as resources are diverted into the club’s new Flamingo Park ground rather than the playing budget.

“We’ve got a run of