DPL v Kettering Town

I’ve only ever been to one of these matches when we’ve played a non-league side - Ebbsfleet who enjoy the benefits of having possibly the biggest car park in the country. In fact, its major purpose is to serve Ebbsfleet International (Eurostar) Railway Station. We won that with no thanks to Lawlor who gave them a good start by not being sensible (exactly what it was I can’t remember), but the record shows that we were 2-0 down before coming back and winning 6-2.

Apart from losing 0-1 to Kings Lynn in the dark days of the Schofield Process and 2-3 to Stevenage when we were led by Dismal Dickov - both at home, I don’t recall any recent set-backs at the hands of lowly opposition, so perhaps the chances of getting beaten by a tier 7 club are relatively slim. This is especially so when we are playing rather more enterprising football than we were under those two.

Our Away form may be a viable factor and of course the fact that man for man we must have better quality players is certainly in play. Of course they need to produce performances which justify their ability and if luck comes into it we can’t afford too much of the bad kind.

These occasions are replete with emotion and if there is always a belief that David will get the better of the (relative) Goliath. That makes the overwhelming majority of the audience feel good. If it happens, I suppose we can depart the scene knowing that we are in a sense popular for having participated unsuccessfully. We won’t win any friends by winning will we?

I suppose that predicting a loss (and I’m assuming we will agree that it is the FT score not a result after penalties) would be the consolation forecast, but I’m going for a 3-1 win - Gibson/Ironside/Sharp.