Deal Town are knocking ever louder on the door of the Isthmian Southeast Play Off places and Steve King’s side go into their trip to Sheppey United this weekend on a great run of form.

They have just one defeat in their last nine and since they beat leaders Three Bridges at the end of January, Deal have won five out of five scoring a minimum of three goals in every game. 

Last weekend’s 3-0 home win over Hastings United saw Deal move to within six points of the Play Off places with twelve games to play.

We caught up with a naturally cautious Deal boss this week and he admitted, “We have had  a good month – six wins in our last seven games – and yes I admit it has changed the perspective on our season slightly and it will hopefully lead to an exciting final dozen games.” 

“I think to be fair, I am not surprised by this as before Christmas we were playing well but our results probably weren’t a fair reflection of our performances.”

“Whilst I don’t think that we have played significantly better since Christmas, it just shows that when you go on a little bit of a run and get a little bit of luck, things start dropping for you, that you can string results together.”

“But I was saying to a lot of people before Christmas, including you guys, that I felt that we had it in our locker to go on a run, and it’s obviously pleasing to do it when we have because it’s probably stopped our season potentially petering out!”

“If we hadn’t of got the points we would probably be too far off looking above and knowing that we are probably safe, we would have had twelve games with not a huge amount to play for.” 

“Don’t get me wrong, I still think that we are a long way off playing for a Play-off place, we need an awful lot to go our way at the same time as keeping our brilliant form.”

“It does keep the excitement going probably for another month or so I’d say!” 

“You just never know how people respond under pressure and I think that the sides who are currently in the Play Offs are there on merit and I would expect the current picture to be very close to, if not the way it ends to be honest, but it only possibly takes one of those sides to have a difficult run of form which we know can happen in this League – it’s easy to go three, four, five games without a win and you just never know what’s going to happen.” 

“I still say we are very long outsiders!” 

“We have a big game with Sheppey on Saturday and then play bottom of the table East Grinstead at home on Tuesday night, if we can get another six points on the board by this time next week, it will just keep the sides in the Play Offs glancing over their shoulders thinking that they have to make sure that they stay in those places, and sometimes pressure can do funny things!” 

“Sheppey have had a strange season – they’ve changed managers, Kev (former boss Kevin Watson) was someone who I rate highly and if I am honest, I am surprised that the change happened!”

“I know that they are not in great form, but the new managers (George and Ian Batten) have only had one game in charge against Broadbridge and although they lost, Sheppey had the chances to win the game quite comfortably – they missed a lot of chances!”

“Sheppey is always a difficult place to go – they beat us at our place earlier in the season and played very well on the day, so it is going to be a tough game.” 

“But we are confident – we have beaten some good sides including Three Bridges and winning away at Margate – we have done it against good sides. We now face two sides who are struggling for form – Sheppey I don’t think have won many of their last seven or eight games and East Grinstead are nearly thirty points from safety.”

“So, if we can put another six points on the board in the next week and get to fifty-seven points with ten games left, you just don’t know…”