Patience has paid off for Witham Town and their squad building is gathering pace as they put plans in place for their return to Ryman League division one north.

Despite losing several members of the squad that got relegated from the Ryman League premier division last year and the early part of the summer being quiet in terms of new players coming in, they are now reaping the rewards of staying patient.

They may have ended up losing 4-1, but Witham assistant manager John Ray was impressed with how they did in their pre-season game at East Thurrock United on Saturday and feels they have got some real quality on their hands.

So much so, that Ray is anticipating some tough decisions to be made when it comes time to trim the numbers back to the final squad that will be at the Village Glass Stadium next year.

He said: “The problem we had was that we had a few people leaving the club, but there was no issue with that as far as I was concerned.

“Danny Emmanuel leaving was a blow, but we feel as if we’ve been able to replace people with real quality.

“I’m quite optimistic and even more so after what I saw at East Thurrock.

“We were 1-0 up at half-time and played some great football.

“The back four were superb and we restricted them to just a handful of half-chances.

“Everything that we’ve been doing in training, they had taken on board and I think people will see us playing a lot more football this year.

“The problem that we’re going to have is that we have a lot of quality there and cutting down the squad is going to be a real headache.

“I know (manager) Garry (Kimble) was becoming frustrated a few weeks ago because other teams were signing players while we were having to be patient, but I really feel that our patience has paid off.”