Sittingbourne go there in fifth place in Bostik South League, just a couple of points off the top, after a very healthy start to their season.
They’ve only lost once in the league, to Faversham, and apart from that have been hard to beat and played a lot of attractive football.
Their good run continued last Saturday when they led VCD Athletic three times, scoring a late winner to clinch the game 3-2.
All three goals came from headers with Afolabi Coker getting the deciding goal from a corner after coming on an as a second half substitute for injured captain Ben Gorham.
The first goal was headed in by Bola Dawodu – like Coker’s, from a Chris Elliott assist – and top scorer Dawodu is in a hot run of form at the moment.
He’s scored in four of the last five games for Sittingbourne, and again it was a header from a free-kick in the most recent game, the Kent Senior Cup-tie at holders Dover Athletic on Tuesday night. This time the supplier was right-back Chris Webber.
That gave Sittingbourne the equaliser on the night and they then went in front with a terrific goal from Kane Rowland, who had come on as substitute with manager Nick Davis taking the chance to rest some key players.
Dover, with a strong side but not their full Conference team, levelled direct from a free-kick and then went through on penalties as the game ended 2-2, former Sittingbourne goalkeeper Chris Lewington making a terrific save from one of them.
Sittingbourne’s players left Dover that night hungry – hungry for more chances to play on Conference grounds against quality opponents.
Horsham will be a different sort of battle on Saturday. They’ve made an inconsistent start to the season and were hammered 5-2 on their own pitch by in-form Herne Bay last Saturday, though they had a lot of first choice players out injured.
Sittingbourne did the double over Horsham last season, winning the away match near the end of the season 1-0 thanks to a goal by Gil Carvalho.
Horsham finished just one place and one point behind the Brickies last season, but it will be an almost totally restructured team that visits Sussex this weekend.