Town Take On Yellows

They may be winless in seven league games and have failed to triumph away since mid-October but Gavin Macpherson remembers only well the danger Farnborough Town, our opponents on Saturday, posed in the corresponding game earlier in the season.

Farnborough beat us comfortably 4-1 and while they have tailed off somewhat in recent weeks, Gavin is under no illusions about what could lie in store – especially given our absentees.

Town go into the game still without Dylan Adjei-Hersey while Lennon Peake remains on the sidelines, Xavier Benjamin starts the first of a three-game ban and Amaru Kaunda has returned to Cambridge United. Not ideal but as ever, that gives an opportunity to others to stake a claim.

For their part Farnborough have just brought in 19-year-old AFC Bournemouth youth striker Jonny Stuttle, who played at Aldershot for the last eight weeks, while Hisham Kasimu, a familiar face to Town fans, has left the Yellows despite the club wanting him to stay. The visitors also have Fionn Mooney who at one stage in November seemed about to play for us, only to choose Farnborough instead.

The postponement of the Eastbourne game in midweek allowed us to have an extra training session to, as Gav put it, “implement some more strategy” for the visit of Farnborough.

“For me, when we played them before, even now they remain one of the best teams we have played all season,” said Gav. “Lots of clubs lose form but it will be a temporary blip for them. For us, no game is easy. Losing Xav tomorrow means losing a player who goes into the trenches for you but there are others in the same bracket.”

 Following back-to-back draws — both games we should have won — it’s getting to the point where we cannot afford to be cast further adrift.

 “Failing to win when you should do definitely hurts. Sure as time goes on the credibility factor (of getting out of this) comes into play,” said Gav.  “But I’m not one to give up and the supporters last Saturday at Weymouth were yet again superb, clapping us off even though they must have been gutted.”

To such an extent that Gavin had to pull a crestfallen Bailey Brown out of the dressing room to join the rest of the team in the usual end-of-match show of thanks.

“Bailey was upset over his mistake and to his credit his mood showed how much he cares. But at the same time there were people on the terraces who had paid good money.”

“Let’s not detract from the difficulty we find ourselves in. We are going to have to put together an incredible run of form but there is no element of throwing in the towel, not on my watch.

“We spoke about the fans in training on Thursday. I realise this hasn’t been the season they would have wanted but the majority have a balanced view about how tough this was going to be for a club of our structure. However difficult this has been, we need them to find that extra piece of resilience in the remaining games especially at home. It gives us all a lift and we’ll do our best on the pitch to fuel their enthusiasm.”

AW