Cray Wanderers women have started the new season in perfect form thanks to perhaps the only striker in England scoring faster than Erling Haaland.
Newly promoted to the South East Counties League, step six of the women’s football pyramid, the squad have won all three games, most recently putting seven goals past last season’s runners up Tonbridge Foresters.
Leading the line was 31-year-old personal trainer Katie Jackson, who scored four to take her season tally to nine goals and four assists in just three matches, four more contributions than Manchester City hero Haaland despite having played fewer matches.
Of her teammates, Jackson said: “The girls are like family, everyone sticks together.
“The biggest thing is ultimately we don’t get paid to be here, we are all here because we enjoy it and that in itself shows the dedication and commitment that people have for the team.”
Team chemistry aside, plenty of work has been done on pitch to prepare for the season.
Jackson said: “We have done a lot of work in preseason, so to get the results we’re getting, it is a team performance, the whole squad is coming together.
“We have had quite a few new players come through as well which has made a big difference, and I think together we are just solid and performing every week, it’s great.”
Club CEO Sam Wright, a former Wanderers player, knows the community better than most and underlined the club’s culture is as important as what happens on the pitch.
Wright said the expansion into the women’s game was a natural next step given the club’s growth.
He said: “For me, you’re not a proper community football club unless you’ve got opportunities for boys and girls, and the girls have been an absolute pleasure to have.
“Obviously they have done so well on the pitch, but off the pitch the girls interact so well with the other teams around the club.”
This squad is used to success in its short history: launched as the Wanderers’ first women’s team last year, they cruised to promotion, winning 14 of 16 matches in their debut season.
This has enabled Wright to secure sponsorship and scrap a planned pay-to-play structure.
He said: “We just need to stay growing as a club, we want to keep moving up the pyramid in both men’s and women’s.
“It is early days, but they have taken huge steps already and won their first three games, so we are over the moon with what they’re doing.”
Playing at the newly redeveloped Flamingo Park stadium in Sidcup, the sky is the limit for Cray Wanderers.
Wright said: “You can’t buy what we’ve got, we’re London’s oldest football club.
“We want to try and push this team into a new arena, both as a team and a brand, and engage the local community at Flamingo Park.”
The stadium has provided women’s manager Dean Jarman, 31, a perfect platform to build his team.
All Cray Wanderers squads, from the first team down to the academy, play at Flamingo Park, with the men’s and women’s first teams training together once per week.
Jarman believes the team’s character will be key to their success.
The attitude was on full view against Foresters, where Cray scored seven despite falling behind.
Jarman said: “If we go down that early it is always a hurdle to overcome, to get it back to 1-1 that quick and score three goals after that speaks volumes for the team, so definitely good character in there.
“Today was a statement, but now we need to be a little bit humble and make sure that we perform week in, week out.”
The Wands’ season will continue this weekend, hosting Comets WFC in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup second qualifying round.
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