As you might have seen across my social media channels my site will be undergoing a rebrand with a new website and a new logo in the coming weeks.
For those of you who haven’t seen, I will be moving platforms but hopefully without any difference from you as a subscriber, a smooth transition and the ability to provide another level of subscription that might benefit more people than ever before.
Keep your eyes peeled for announcements as they come and I hope your support of my work continues as it has done in previous years.
Now onto today’s blog, another great week of non-league football in the books and plenty that has caught my eye, especially in the Enterprise National League South. Like many others this season, I had a set of predictions but who knows how they would turn out.
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These sides are one third through their campaign roughly and there’s been a few stand outs and others that have surprised from where I expected them to be.
My predicted top seven has only three sides currently within that position range, that shows really how wild this division is but then we saw that last season with the six way title decider on the final day.
One of those three are the leaders Hornchurch. I certainly wasn’t expecting to see them still unbeaten going into this weekend’s round of fixtures and they’re much higher than I anticipated. Can they hold onto it? Well, there is a points gap, a small one even if sides below win their games in hand, a lot of work to do for the chasing pack.
Three other clubs stand out in that top pack, and two of them are neck and neck in 2nd and 3rd place at the time of writing. I picked Weston-Super-Mare for mid-table, not convinced they could repeat last season when they almost snatched a play-off spot.
They were going like a rocket, then lost the excellent Scott Bartlett to Eastleigh but haven’t dropped a beat since his departure. That bodes extremely well for the rest of the campaign if they can maintain it.
When I finished my predictions I wondered if I had Hemel Hempstead Town too low. I liked Lee Allison’s summer recruitment, early and picking up the targets he wanted and getting them in the building. I felt after I posted them it’s one I might regret and so far, it’s absolutely right! Just nine goals conceded, an FA Cup 1st Round appearance and unlucky to go out on penalties to League One Wigan, so far for me is the one that got away.
Two of the promoted sides are the last two stand outs, AFC Totton and Horsham. I’ve watched the Hornets at close quarters for a few years, Totton I’ve been down to see a couple of years ago, a very progressive club like their West Sussex rivals.
Horsham have evolved over the 16 games to sit as high as 4th last weekend, many of them as a club would be happy to finish one place above the relegation zone and secure a second season at this level. Totton might well have bigger ideas than that given their investment in all areas of the club.
I felt they might struggle, given the knowledge of the division, the amount of full time teams which has increased on last season, but points in the bag already gives them a march on a few others who I felt should finish higher than their current position.
Now for the few that have surprised and not in a good way! The current bottom four I had nowhere near those places, that’s how far wrong I think their season has been so far. One or two I went for higher up based on expected goal scoring output outweighing the defence leaking a few, but seemingly the leaking has been higher than the opposite end result.
Dagenham I expected to be in the front runners, not because just of the acquisition of Andy Carroll, but a manager with a reasonably good track record at the level, way underperforming so far.
Likewise Ebbsfleet Utd, many tipped them for the title but I felt that was a step too far this time around and although form is steady it’s not yet pulling up any trees.
The one bonus is there is plenty of football still left in order to pick up points and see more of my predictions hit the spot, not every club will land correctly 1-24 but if I’m somewhere close along the way then I’ll take that as a win.
