Tight leagues at this season stage are of relative normality, especially in the top four divisions and the professional game However, this season's National League South top seven is tight. Finley Chung has a look at the National League South Playoff race.
Eight points separate Torquay at the top and eighth-placed Weston Super Mare, with Boreham Wood, Truro City, Eastbourne Borough, Maidstone United, Dorking Wanderers and Worthing occupying 2nd-7th in the NLS at the time of writing.
Eastbourne Borough are the lowest scorers of the top seven, with just 33 goals from their 27 matches, in contrast to Dorking Wanderers’ 55 goals, despite sitting two places higher than Marc White’s side.
Former Peterborough and Crystal Palace forward, Kwesi Appiah has lit up the league, soaring to the tip of the goalscoring charts with seventeen strikes to his name and a Player of the Month Award for December 2024.
Both Torquay and Eastbourne are yet to lose at home this season, underpinning their excellent form in their title and playoff charges respectively.
It’s a league that often gets overlooked in the Non-League Space, but Step 2 of the pyramid is responsible for some of the league’s best players.
Tyler Harvey, Aaron Blair and Jordan Young all jump to the forefront of the mind, in names on the lips of most associated with the NLS.
Top of the pile Torquay, have remarkably not lost to any of their rivals this season, with the slip-ups coming at Farnbrough, Hornchurch and Welling United.
Something that does make for interesting reading is that of the Football Web Pages Predicted table, which takes into account all of the teams' results’ up to this stage and the percentile likelihood of results from their remaining fixtures.
At the time of writing, tight isn’t the right word to describe the supercomputer's predictions.
Torquay United are league winners, level on points and goal difference with Maidstone, with the Devon side promoted by predicted goals scored, leaving Maidstone, Boreham Wood, Truro, Worthing, Eastbourne and Dorking to fight it out in the playoffs.
One thing is for sure, the NLS playoff picture is likely to change more times than the weather heading towards the final months of the season, but it’s guaranteed to bring drama, highs, lows and everything else in between.
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