On the eve of our home fixture against Horsham, pending a 9am inspection, Gavin Macpherson has given a personal insight into how a club of our stature deals with a prospective pile-up of games.

If Horsham goes the same way as our matches against Dorking and Hampton (the latter now scheduled for March 3 at the FOURTH attempt), Town face being embroiled in massive fixture congestion through the rest of February and March.

“There are many ways you can come at it ,” Gavin explained. “Yes it helps to have more time on the training field. And if you go on a run during a fixture pile-up and get points on the board, it can work in your favour and you can be champing at the bit to get out again.”

“But on balance, for a club like us with a smaller squad than most, you’d wish there wasn’t such a pile-up.”

Originally, the first Tuesday in March was put aside as a midweek rest, only to be forced into deployment against Hampton once that fixture was called off for a third time this week. It leaves Town with precious little breathing space in the coming weeks.

“If Horsham is off too, that will be another one in the mix,” said Gavin. “If so, we will use the time as preparation for Ebbsfleet next Tuesday.”

Without, however, the versatile Avan Jones who has left for Step 3 Uxbridge.

“We had no choice but to let him go,” said Gavin. “Some supporters may not realise that if a club puts in an official approach for a non-contracted player and he wants to go, we can’t stop him. We made it clear to Avan how we saw the outlook but ultimately it was his choice.”

But how do you legislate for having a small squad and losing players just at the time when you have to play Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday? Triple whammy on paper.

“That’s why it’s far more difficult for us than for a lot of teams,” Gavin admitted. “Take Ebbsfleet for example. They will train Monday and may even come in on Sunday.  For us, it’s harder with a smaller squad to rotate which means a proportion of players are always going to have to play every game. Which then throws up a possible injury situation. With fixture congestion, it’s much easier for full-time teams to cope with Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday and prepare accordingly.”

As for Horsham, Gavin said he “desperately wants” to get out and try and pick up three points but is ready to switch attention instead to Ebbsfleet if the weather scuppers yet another fixture.

“I understand about not winning football matches the longer our run goes on but it’s no good me stressing about it. We’ve done our homework on Horsham whose big advantage coming into the season was that they were planning for Step 2 over several years. Probably they’ve exceeded expectations but they’ve kept the players they wanted to, havn’t had too much upheaval and have plenty of goals in them.”

AW