The latest from Chairman Ben Clasper, from the programme of our Home game against Concord Rangers Saturday January 22nd.

Today’s game against Concord Rangers will see us reach the half-way point of the season for us in terms of matches played but as we are already over 60% of the way through the calendar the fixtures are going to come thick and fast as we look to complete the final 20 matches in 15 weeks having taken 24 weeks to play the first 20. Our match against Dorking earlier this week was the first of four midweek fixtures in five weeks and the result showed the impact squad size can have as injuries start to take their toll. With four players missing from the regular first XI whose consistency earlier in the season saw us rise up to 2nd in the table we were only able to name a full bench on Tuesday with the signing of Ibra Sekaja just before the deadline.

In addition to Sanchez Ming (whose recovery hopefully continues to be ahead of schedule) we have now lost Michael Timlin, Deon Moore and Darren McQueen and sadly more are expected to be added to that list between writing this and the game today. No one at the club though is in the business of making excuses and Gavin is working hard on bringing in new faces to give us the depth and quality to stay in the promotion hunt all the way to the end of the season. It is not surprising to see the clubs with larger resources starting to move to the top of the table and no doubt Dorking will be hoping to avoid the fate of previous leaders Dartford, Oxford and Ebbsfleet who failed to hold on to top spot.

Covid and the fixtures computer will also no doubt have their say on matters as the National League South has larger discrepancies between clubs for the number of games played than the North or the National divisions so much so that the club immediately below us, St Albans has six games in hand on the club immediately above us, Chippenham. There has been a lot of discussion at all levels of the game about the management of postponements and as we have said before, in our experience there is very little to be gained by clubs having games called off in fact the opposite is true. Losing a Saturday match means you lose momentum, you lose money and you face a congested fixture list in future. In every discussion we have had the preference has always been to play on.

It also looks like our games today and on Tuesday will be the last fixtures we will play under covid restrictions as the Government has announced the removal of their plan B restrictions from Wednesday, a decision that has understandably been met with concern especially from those that are vulnerable and will be placed in the position of being told to return to offices but using public transport where they will be offered no protection. With infections, cases, hospitalisations and deaths all more than double what they were on the day plan B restrictions were announced personally I don’t understand how anyone can look at those graphs and decide the time is right to remove them. As a club we will continue to tread carefully and keep working to our covid risk assessment measures.

Our games this week also mark the start of a strange quirk of the fixture list as after recent games against fellow promotion hopefuls Dartford and Dorking we start a run today of 11 games in a row against teams who are all outside of the play off positions. Whilst it is something of a cliché that there are no easy games it is also fair to say that by the time that run ends with our visit to Maidstone in mid-March the promotion picture will be much clearer and the opportunity is there for us be in the mix. Incidentally that match will also mark the point at which we reach the threshold for the season to be resolved on a ‘points per game’ basis as to avoid the disputes of the last two seasons it has been pre-agreed that 75% of games would be sufficient to deem the season complete. Postponements due to covid though are becoming increasingly rare to the extent that it is now highly likely we will finish the season as planned.

Let’s hope we finish the first half of season today with a win and I hope you all enjoy the game.