Teams in sixteenth and seventeenth place in the Vanarama National League South meet on Saturday at Park View Road when Welling United host Hampton and Richmond Borough.

At present the Wings are two points behind their guests with both teams having six games left to play. Although there is a six point buffer between Welling and the bottom four, neither they nor Hampton are guaranteed safety and will be looking to get to the fifty point mark, and beyond, as quickly as possible.

On Tuesday night, Welling were unable to build on their welcome victory over Bath City on the previous Saturday as they went down three-two at in-form Chippenham Town. Taylor Maloney scored a brace to take him to eleven goals for the season, but they still lost to the odd goal in five.

At the same time, the Beavers were beating Taunton Town three-one, which kept the Somerset team below both clubs. At half time the teams were tied up at one apiece but Hampton had the better of the second half and claimed their fifth win in six games.

Back in early October when the two teams met at the Beveree Stadium, it was a game of two penalties. Maloney put Welling ahead from the spot midway through the first half but Tommy Block levelled three minutes after the break.

In last season’s corresponding fixture, Hampton claimed all three points. At half time, Welling appeared to be in control. Dipo Akinyemi opened the scoring in the fifteenth minute and Ade Shokunbi, who has since had a spell at Hampton, made it two just after the half hour mark.

Jake Gray bundled home just shy of the hour mark to pull one back and four minutes later, Ryan Gondoh levelled. It took just four further minutes for the game to be turned on its head completely when Niko Muir put the visitors into a lead that they did not give-up.

One former Wing will be in the Hampton team visiting a former club when Southend United loanee, Tommy Smith, runs out onto the pitch in an opposition shirt.

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.