DAN BATEMAN is hoping the new firepower in his Sumas squad can lead them to cup glory this season.
Wokingham and Emmbrook climbed up to fourth in Hellenic Division One East with a 3-1 win over Chinnor on Saturday, with the victory sealed by new signing Jake White.
He added to early strikes from Elliott Rushforth and Luke Scope to secure a fourth win in five games.
Despite the good run, promotion looks highly unlikely for Wokingham as they still trail the top two by nine points with just seven league games remaining.
But Sumas are still in two cup competitions with a trip to Highmoor-Ibis to come in the Reading Senior Cup, which was called off on Monday due to a waterlogged pitch, and next Tuesday’s clash against Holyport in the Hellenic League Supplementary Cup.
And Bateman has lofty ambitions.
“It’s two cups that I want to go and try and win,” the Sumas boss told The Wokingham Paper.
“It’s scary that we’re in February and only have seven league games and the season’s finished.
“The more we can do in cup competitions, the more it’s going to prolong our season and we’re building for next year.
“I really do fancy our chances in both the Supplementary Cup and the Reading Senior Cup.
“They’re competitions we’ve done well in in the past and we want to test ourselves against teams from a higher level and they both give us the opportunity for that.”
He added: “If I’m honest, I’m hoping to catch third place in the league.
“I’d like to finish third. Third or fourth place would be good after what was a difficult start to the season.
“For me, it’s about doing well in a cup competition, I’d like to get to the final of at least one of them, and then try to finish in the top three or four of the league if we can.”
The 3-1 win on Saturday follows 8-0, 4-1 and 4-2 wins in the last two months as Sumas begin to flex their attacking muscle.
And with the arrival of White from Woodley, Bateman is exciting about his side’s goalscoring potential.
“We’ve been looking to strengthen going forward a little bit,” said Bateman.
“If you look at my squad, I’ve got 20 players but we were a little bit light in the forward department.
“We’ve got Luke (Scope) coming back now which is good and we’ve also got Jake White as well, so suddenly we’re looking strong again going forward.
“Jake’s a player I’ve known for a long time. He was at Binfield, Bracknell and Woodley but for whatever reason it hasn’t really worked out for his this year.
“He’s been to a few clubs and not got a lot of football. His strengths are there for everyone to see.
“He’s a pacy, skilful forward and he’s what we need. We need another option. We need something when things aren’t going our way that we can try something different and Jake definitely gives us that.
“We’ve also got James Clark coming back from uni now so my attacking options are looking really good, which I’m really pleased about.”
He added: “We’ve got a couple of lads in the reserves already knocking on the door of first team football and they’ve only just turned 16.
“The future is looking really strong for the club so we just want to try to keep momentum going forward.”
