Six million viewers set to see Wands

By David Watters

Cray Wanderers

Cray Wanderers are looking forward to seeing their status as the oldest football club in London and illustrious history beamed into the homes of six million football-mad fans in Thailand.

A team of documentary-makers descended on the Ryman North club's current home at Bromley's Hayes Lane to film sports documentary Unseen Football for Thai TV 3, Thailand's main TV broadcaster.

The Wands will feature alongside Chelsea and Arsenal when the documentary is aired this winter with Thai fans set to learn about the capital's first football club and the plans to end its exile and return home to a new stadium.

Filming took place last Tuesday with club secretary Kerry Phillips, matchday secretary Mark Simpson, club historian Jerry Dowlen and chairman Gary Hillman all interviewed at various locations around the ground. The TV crew then visited St Paul’s Cray, where they filmed the club’s original changing rooms, the railway viaduct that some of the original team were building in 1859-60, and Star Lane Cemetery, the site of the club’s first ground.

Last year the documentary team filmed various clubs in the North West, including Preston, Liverpool and Manchester United, for its first documentary series. Hillman, pictured being interviewed for the documentary, is delighted that the club had attracted interest from the other side of the world to feature in the second series.

He said: "The interest shown by a media company from nearly 6,000 miles away is fantastic and demonstrates how this great club’s name and history is being recognised and appreciated by those far from these shores."

TV3's production manager Krisdin Suwanbubpa said: "It was an honour to visit and learn about London's oldest football club to educate our viewers on an important part of English football history."

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