Last season the National League South was the stand out crazy division. Six clubs were able to walk off with the title on the final day of the season, something you certainly don’t see every campaign.
Truro City held their nerve to secure a first ever promotion to the top of non-league’s tree whilst Boreham Wood followed them up a few weeks later as play-off winners, again not without it’s own drama as the sides finishing sixth and seventh battled out the final.
But what to this coming season? Well, so far the last few months have seen a crazy amount of signings walking through the door across the board, there is however the possibility that it won’t be the only division to have a whole host of clubs that would fancy their chances of being in the number one spot come next April.
Grab yourself a subscription and read through what potentially could be the most exciting division in the country once again.
The content below was originally paywalled.
When you take just the other five that fell just short, that’s a set of clubs on their own. Dorking Wanderers, Eastbourne Borough, Worthing, Torquay Utd and Maidstone Utd have all made moves to try and go one better this time around.
Most have lost some key components from last season, the nature of the beast when it comes to this level of football, Borough seeing former National League title winner in Matt Gray arriving at the helm. Only Worthing of that set have yet to taste top division football and produced some club records of their own despite falling just short last time out.
Before those clubs began to flex a little bit in the market, Hornchurch, Hemel Hempstead and Chelmsford City were all filling their squad spots with relative and consummate ease. The latter with a full time model in their armoury will be expected to challenge at the top end, both Darryl McMahon and Lee Allinson have moved swiftly to get their guys in place early and as much the calibre from both should see them in the mix as well.
Two of the three relegated sides Ebbsfleet and Dagenham have also been clever with their recruitment so far, Maidenhead have yet to show their hand, all three will want to follow the Wood back at the first attempt but impossible with only two promotion places. That brings you to a total of eleven clubs who will be expecting some level of success, that being a top seven finish, there will be a few disappointed faces come April and that’s without finding a wild card or a dark horse.
Last season many expected the new boys to be the ones finishing in the bottom four, but not one of them did meaning one or two established sides made the drop instead.
Those three coming up this year, Horsham, Dover Athletic, and AFC Totton won’t want to be any different. The former have the backing off the pitch in sustainable manner, the latter similar but bigger and boast a little bit of EFL experience amongst their group whilst the Whites returned at the first time of asking but will their budget be enough to be able to keep themselves at least fifth from bottom?
And to possibly cap it all last week Farnborough bringing in three proven strikers at this level, where do you possibly fit them in?!
But there is still just under eight weeks to go until it all kicks off. Far too much time for much to change, signings to happen to make you think it’s tipped the balance in favour of someone else.
Not a chance of me making predictions this early in the summer, far too much to change still but if you’re that way inclined head into the comments and let’s see what you’ve got……
