Eastbourne Borough revving up for 2021-22's final National South lap

“We have a dozen games left and each one of them will be a real contest. Dorking top of the table, Billericay in the bottom place – both will be desperate for the points, for very different reasons. And as it happens, both of those clubs are due at Priory Lane in the coming weeks.”

Ebbsfleet v Eastbourne Boro - the match in pictures..

You know what he means. Desperate is not a label for the Sports themselves, of course. After a largely successful campaign, with plenty of positives, Bloor’s side sit very handily placed on the edge of the play-off places. It keeps the season nicely alive, and Priory Lane spectators have been well served. So far this season, twelve home fixtures in National South have yielded 47 goals, for or against – just about four goals per game.

The table has shaken down as most observers predicted back in August. The biggest spenders are nip and tuck at the top, with Dorking Wanderers narrowly beating nearest rivals Maidstone last weekend. Further round the M25, Eastbourne were defeated but not disgraced at full-timers Ebbsfleet United – on a day of challenges for Danny.

Tomorrow (Saturday) the Sports welcome another of the play-off challengers, St Albans City. The Saints were on fire, and actually league leaders, when the sides met in October, with Borough losing 2-1 to two very late goals. Bloor expects no less a contest at the Lane.

“Ian Allinson is one of the most respected managers in non-league, and a good friend of mine whom I speak to regularly. They won a cracker of a game last weekend, 3-2 against Bath City, and they are full of good players.”

The Sports have nothing to fear.

Goalkeeper Lee Worgan – a late withdrawal through illness last Saturday – returns. Eighteen-year-old Portsmouth scholar Conor Manderson was his emergency replacement. “I’d love to tell you we have a full squad,” observed the manager wryly, “but that’s what I thought this time last week! In the event we lost Worgs, Jake Elliott, James Vaughan and Dom Hutchinson!” Watford loanee Hutchinson had to step down because of the limit of five loan players, but he will return on Saturday.

And where Borough players wore an all-white strip for their last home game, in a stand against knife crime, the Saints will step out at the Lane in a blaze of Blue and Yellow. A simple coincidence, since those are City’s usual club colours. But in these days when the free world stands together against tyranny, even the genial and comradely world of non-league football is not untouched. And those blue and yellow colours, surely, will shine all the brighter.