Andy Drury celebrated his double-century in Fleet colours with an assist for the first goal at Barnet but revealed he had to put discipline ahead of personal glory on the day he made the 200, some 15 years on from his debut.
“I was trying [to score],” he told BBC Radio Kent’s Charles Webster. “But’s it’s hard when you’ve gone 1-0 and you’re playing centre-midfielder, to get forward. You’ve always got that lead to protect and you’ve got the front four to go out and get the other goals so it was important I kept my discipline.”
Drury’s seen plenty of comings and goings across his two spells with the club but he rates this squad as the best he’s played in during his time as both a Gravesend & Northfleet and Ebbsfleet United player.
“The squad is as strong as I’ve ever had since I’ve been here in both spells,” he said. “It’s the highest we’ve ever been pretty much but it would be nice to get in the Football League while I’m here. I think it’s important we keep learning. There’s times in the second half where we were turning over possession a bit too much and we were getting countered. But we’ll keep learning and hopefully put together some results and take us up the league.
“[The competition for places], they’re tiring me out to be honest! There’s competition all over the place , you look at the front three, Shields, Weston, Corey, Ebou, Coulson, Keds is up there with Cheeky and Daz and then midfield. There’s competition everywhere and everyone’s pushing each other and I do think once we get a settled team, we’ll go on a run like we did at the end of last season.
“You need [that size squad] at the start of the season. There’s so many games at the start of the season – we’ve just done Saturday/Tuesday, Saturday/Tuesday, we’ve got a Saturday/Monday coming up and another Saturday/Tuesday so I’m sure there’ll be a few injuries along the way and you’ll need people to come in and do a good job.”
Of the 3-0 win at Barnet, Drury was delighted to help out his older (by three months) partner in crime Danny Kedwell for the opening goal.
“I’ve got to help him out sometimes, he’s getting old now,” said Drury. “He had one blocked and then turned the geezer inside out and then slotted it in the bottom corner. It’s always important to get the first goal in these games and today highlighted it.
“You can’t really ask for much more, I thought we pretty much dominated the last four games without getting the results we wanted but obviously today we’ve won 3-0 and got the result. It was nice to get that two-goal cushion and you get to relax and enjoy it a bit more and then the third at the end made it a lot better.”
Listen to the interview below.
