A Final Day Maths exam: Enfield Town hope to pass with flying colours

Some people might feel that it is good for football fans to feel engaged and to feel their team is still involved in meaningful fixtures, at the end of a long season.” Towners” might beg to differ with that view, after a miserable, error-strewn last home game of the season, which should have seen them secure their League survival, rather than deliver a wretched defeat to lowly visitors and fellow-relegation rivals East Thurrock United. Enfield Town fans could be forgiven for having spent the last few days in desperate spells of long-forgotten school mathematics, with their shoes and socks removed for helpful digit counting. Arithmetic, algebra and probability have been the keys to settling pre-match nerves, ahead of our final day visit to already-relegated Cray Wanderers. Adding up and subtracting the columns of points earned and goals scored and conceded; working out the value of the missing integer represented by “X”; calculating likelihood of all three relevant results aligning.

Confusingly, tomorrow’s opponents, Cray Wanderers, play at Bromley F.C., in the absence of floodlighting at their Oxford Road home. As mentioned last week, Cray is one of the oldest football clubs in the world, established in 1860. It also has a surprisingly international roster of players. Perhaps they are lured by the glitz and glamour of all that footballing history … but perhaps not! Their squad boasts players from Egypt, Ivory Coast, Estonia, The Republic of Ireland, Jamaica, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Greece, Cyprus and the Netherlands - a veritable footballing United Nations, indeed. Let’s just hope they are able to keep the peace tomorrow, for Enfield’s sake.

At first glance, things look very tight. Two teams each sit just two points behind Enfield in the Ryman Isthmian Premier League table. Both have home games, while Enfield are on the road. No other clubs are involved in this 11th-hour scramble to avoid relegation. One side (last week’s visiting conquerors, East Thurrock United) has a Goal Difference +7 better than the Towners; the other (Wingate & Finchley) is -5 goals worse off. Either or both teams could potentially win their games and go ahead of Enfield in the table; and both must do so to consign Town to the dreaded ‘drop’, back whence they came. But wait! Enfield also have that final game remaining. So their fate remains entirely in their own hands. A win will see them remain comfortably safe, in 19th place. A draw will be enough to see them fight on next season in the Premier League, even if both their rivals win; as long as Wingate & Finchley do NOT beat 10th-placed Billericay Town by more than 5 goals. Thurrock must beat 2nd-placed Bognor Town, who are already assured of a play-off berth. Meanwhile, there is a good omen for Town fans: Cray have lost their last 5 fixtures, home and away.

It's all to play for still and definitely ‘exciting’, then; but the laws of probability still seem in favour of Enfield’s survival hopes; and in favour of at least a ‘pass’ in this forthcoming public examination. Come on, you Towners!

See the current league table at:
http://www.enfieldtownfootballclub.co.uk/s/table-65370.html