Blues look for fifth straight home win

BLUES will look to continue their excellent home form when they host play-off seeking Slough Town on Saturday, kick-off 3pm.

Tuesday’s 2-1 victory against basement side Gosport Borough saw Kevin Watson’s side had chalk up their fourth three straight home wins, notching 13 goals and two clean sheets in the process.

Despite Tuesday’s loss at Kings Lynn,Slough will arrive at the ProKit UK Stadium in fifth place with 64 points from 32 matches, and they have games in hand over all of their promotion rivals.

The Rebels have taken 43 points from 20 games at their new Arbour Park home, but Blues were one of the three sides who have won there as two Dipo Akinyemi strikes and goals from Jason Williams and Tom Clifford gave them a 4-2 victory in December.

Slough reached the FA Cup second round before going down 4-0 at home against Rochdale in front of the BT Sport cameras.

Dulwich Hamlet, Poole Town and Folkestone Invicta were all beaten on their way to the competition proper where they hammered Blues’ former Conference North rivals Gainsborough Trinity 6-0 away from home.

Their FA Trophy run did not last quite so long as their Cup success beating Kidlington and Maldon & Tiptree 4-1 before a pair of 1-1 draws against Hendon resulted in a penalty shoot-out defeat.

Prior to December’s meeting, the last game between the clubs  came in 2001/2  and the 15 years since haven’t been kind to the Rebels as they lost the use of Wexham Park and spent over ten years playing outside Slough before returning home to the new Arbour Park (complete with an artificial pitch) shortly after the start of last season. The move certainly gave them impetus, and with crowds up 126 percent to an average of 631, they reached the play-offs before losing 1-0 at league runners-up Leamington.

When we last met in the Isthmian League Blues were on their way to promotion as we completed a double with a 3-2 home win and a 1-0 victory on the road. A year later we met in the FA Trophy, and after a controversial goal scored after we’d kicked the ball out of play following an injury helped the Rebels draw 2-2 in a game played at Windsor, we won the replay 2-1.

Slough have been our opponents in two of the biggest games in Stortford’s history. A Lyndon Lynch hat-trick saw Blues win 4-1 at Wexham Park in December 1982 to send us through to the FA Cup third round at Middlesbrough and national fame. That was sweet revenge for the Blues as Slough had broken their hearts in the 1973 FA Amateur Cup semi-final with a 1-0 win at Vicarage Road, Watfo