Last season Hanworth Villa completed the double over Thatcham Town. In September, Villa won 3-2 at Rectory Meadow. Charlie Ten-Grotenhuis put them ahead in the first minute, then Sam Merson added a second before Ashley Howell pulled one back from the spot. Town played the final half hour with ten men after a red card for Cory Hathaway. Hanworth added a late third through Jonathan Hippolyte before Taylor Harry reduced the arrears in injury time.

Hanworth then won 2-1 in Berkshire in March, with Kyen Nicholas and Sam Bender firing in from long-range before Harry Williams’s late consolation.

In their first season playing at this level, Hanworth finished fourth, and won at Marlow in the play-off semi-final. However they were beaten by Walton & Hersham (whom Town drew with on the final day to deprive of the title and send into the play-offs) in the play-off final by 3-1.

Earlier this season Thatcham earned an away point following a 1-1 draw. After Nicholas’s opener, Harry Hoath levelled the scores but despite a red card for home keeper Gary Ross on 56 minutes there were no further goals.

Following their emphatic 5-0 win at Guernsey in midweek, Hanworth have overtaken Thatcham and Hartley Wintney and climbed up to eighth place. They have been heavily reliant on the goals of Nicholas (20) and Merson (18 - four of which were scored in the Channel Islands on Wednesday).

In his programme notes, boss Yashwa Romeo said,

“It was disappointing to concede an injury time winner at Raynes Park Vale in midweek. As we had a lot of players missing we had a young team out, and some were having to play out of position.

But I thought it was a really good performance, particularly given we played with ten men for the last 30 minutes, but sadly we just couldn’t get through that final minute. But that’s football - we did score a last gasp winner ourselves against Binfield in our previous home game.

Although the result at Hartley Wintney was decent, I was slightly disappointed with that one as well. There was a lot of disruption in the game with both teams going down to ten through red cards, and then nine through injuries. In the spells they had an extra man, they didn’t really hurt us and we even created some chances, but unfortunately we couldn’t quite get on top for a sustained period.

Today I am hoping that Jordi, Josh and Jay will be back, and it will be a difficult game against a good physical side. I have challenged the boys to seal a top half place which will be a sign of progress and give us a bye in the Extra Preliminary round of next season’s FA Cup. As Hanworth Villa are one of the teams around us in the table, it’s important we don’t lose this one. Enjoy the game, YASH”