Can the Chats reduce the gap?

Chatham Town will hope to close the narrow on leaders Hornchurch to a not-really-very-close-at-all eight points, but they’ll have to travel to a place where the winter wind whistles around your knees like nowhere else and defeat Canvey Island to do it, and that is unlikely to be easy. Both sides are in decent form, the Chats having won their last three and the Gulls having lost only three of their last ten, but the visitors have seen their away form slip of late with only one win from their last five on the road.

Wrap up warm!

Four points and two places behind Chatham are another Town, Billericay. The Blues got their league form back on track at Margate at the weekend, banishing the memory of two previous defeats, whilst the Robins have seen their form fall off a cliff, with only two wins from their last ten league matches; indeed, add in cup matches and the Robins have won only one match in two months, a run which has seen them drop to ninth. Athletic, however, took four points from the two meetings between the sides last season.

Bognor Regis Town bounced back from being the victims of a giantkilling last week to defeat Folkestone Invicta at the weekend, and the Rocks are back on their own patch this evening as they welcome another set of Seasiders, Margate. The inconsistency of the Rocks form this season is easily seen with a quick look at the league table, where the W-D-L columns all read five, whilst the visitors have lost their last three and are five without a victory, and yet a win on Nyewood Lane would take them above their hosts. The Rocks have won four of their last five meetings, including the last three on their own patch.

Dulwich Hamlet started the campaign as one of our promotion favourites, and after a bumpy spell are finally starting to find their Isthmian feet once more, undefeated in seven matches and pulling in crowds that you’d expect from a side three levels higher. They welcome Potters Bar Town, another side who have improved markedly in recent weeks, and have lost only one of their last nine, so this one might be rather tense. A win from the Scholars would lift them clear of the bottom four, whilst a home victory could see Hamlet as high as eighth.

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