Our non-league expert uses his insight to assess who is best-placed to reach the Football League over the coming fortnight
After more than 4,000 minutes of football in the National League, four teams will fight it out over the next 12 days to see who will join champions Cheltenham Town in League 2 next season.
The final table has produced an intriguing play-off quartet, mixing big-spending Forest Green Rovers and former Football League club Grimsby Town with part-time outfits Dover Athletic and Braintree Town.
Misfiring Forest Green
Forest Green took the unusual step of parting with their manager Ady Pennock in the run-up to Saturday’s final league game at Dover (their opponents in the second v fifth semi-final).
That runner-up berth was already assured for Forest Green, but the claim from their Twitter account that they had “stopped the rot” was far-fetched.
They were, after all, taking on a Dover side who had made wholesale changes with a top-five place also assured.
Forest Green made their managerial change but it could run far deeper than who is at the helm at the New Lawn.
The squad look to have too many players content to take the large salaries on offer from mega-rich owner Dale Vince.
However talented they may have looked in the first few games of the season when they bullied their way through what were arguably relatively easy fixtures, finding a bit of fight and desire may be beyond them.
Over-achieving Dover
Whites manager Chris Kinnear deserves immense credit for his side punching well above their budget in the table, improving on last year’s eighth spot.
Consecutive finishes in the top eight of the National League after promotion from the South division via the play-offs have proved plenty of people (myself included) very wrong.
The South play-off winner often struggles to remain in the top-flight in their second season and only two of the last 11 are guaranteed to be playing at this level (or above) in 2016/17. All previous winners are plying their trade lower in the pyramid.
Kinnear kept his squad together and that was key to making progress that now gives them a shot at being only the third team ever from the county of Kent to play in the Football League.
Impressive Braintree
On the Essex side of the Thames, Braintree Town have also outperformed all reasonable expectation in finishing third and manager Danny Cowley would be my shout for National League Manager of the Season (regardless of what happens in the next two weeks).
Cowley took over the incredibly organised and efficient outfit that wily Alan Devonshire left at Cressing Road just over a year ago and added a touch of flair with some shrewd summer signings.
He is now on the brink of history and has a welcome dilemma as to whether to continue a career as a schoolteacher or take his place in the top 92 bosses in the country full-time.
The Iron would surely rank as the smallest club ever to make it into the top four divisions.
Experienced Grimsby
Grimsby Town know exactly what to expect over the next few days, having been involved in this four-team shootout in the last three seasons.
They got closest last year when a penalty shoot-out defeat to Bristol Rovers broke their hearts and will now hope to emulate Exeter City’s 2007/08 success where they returned a year later to get the job done.
They will, however, also fear joining Cambridge United (07/08 and 08/09) and Luton Town (10/11 and 11/12) with back-to-back play-off final defeats.
Mariners fans may feel that boss Paul Hurst underachieved with the club this season, seeing as they were just six points away from Barnet last year and now go into these play-offs 21 short of top spot.
That has to be a concern in a season that can hardly be described as vintage.
On paper, the Blundell Park outfit are worthy favourites to regain their Football League spot, but something just doesn’t feel right about them and the other three teams will fear them in only name.
The numbers that matter
Braintree have the best defence on offer from the four teams, but have struggled to score goals at their home ground.
They are 20th in the ‘home goals’ table and you feel they will need to get on the scoresheet at least once in the first leg in Cleethorpes on Thursday night.
They are a direct team who, amazingly, haven’t scored any of their 56 goals this season from crosses into the box.
Dover and Grimsby possess prolific strikers that can make this kind of knock-out football ever so slightly easier.
For all their riches, no Forest Green player has hit any more than 15 goals over their 46 matches – a poor return whichever way you look at it.
Grimsby’s record of 82 goals over the season is a massive positive in comparison to the others.
A real concern for Grimsby and Forest Green is their current form in the division.
Any fan suddenly expecting their team to switch the performances on now there’s a change to a knock-out format are likely to be mistaken.
In the 13 previous seasons of play-offs in this division, no team has ever emerged from lower than ninth in the 10-game form table to then go on and gain promotion.
Forest Green and Grimsby sit 15th and 16th respectively in that table based on games 37-46 of the campaign.
Alarmingly, Paul Hurst’s side go into their first-leg with Braintree with the worst recent form of any team ever to make the top five in the division.
To put that into perspective, that’s 56th out of 56 play-off semi-finalists since 2002/03.
Dover have to overcome the 0 from 13 record of fifth-placed teams in this division’s play-off history, although those kind of records are there to be broken and are certainly not as relevant as poor runs of form and being out of the winning habit.
Braintree certainly look best-placed to make history and appeal at the prices available.
Historically, third – with six out of 13 previous winners – has won most finals.
