Hawks now have nine games postponed

Hawks will have trained just twice and played once in almost a month by the time Altrincham visit Westleigh Park for an FA Trophy fourth round tie on Saturday week.

The club have started a 10-day period of self-isolation after recording positive Covid tests among players and staff.

That started on Monday and will end on January 13 - just three days before the Altrincham tie.

Having had to initially call last night’s National League South game at Hungerford off, further games at Chippenham (this Saturday) and Hampton & Richmond (next Tuesday) have followed.

That takes the club’s number of league games postponed due to the pandemic to nine since mid-November.

This Saturday’s game at Chippenham is the third of the NL South programme that day to be postponed. Dulwich v Slough and Tonbridge v Bath City were already off - in both instances due to Covid cases in the visitors’ camps.

That means, an amazing 28 NL South games have been postponed due to positive Covid tests since December 22.

Since beating Braintree in the Trophy on December 19, Hawks’ only game has been last Saturday’s 4-2 home league win against Hungerford.

After coming out of self-isolation last Wednesday, the squad trained just once before the game. They will also be able to train once before the Altrincham match.

Altrincham postponed two

National League games in October, but haven’t been affected since.

Hawks’ Hampshire rivals Eastleigh are also experiencing fresh Covid problems. After calling off three National League games last month, they have now postponed three more due to more positive cases - starting with last night’s match at Stockport.

Nassim L’Ghoul struck late on as Dartford moved to the top of the NL South table last night.

He netted in the 82nd minute to give the Darts a 1-0 home win over Tonbridge.

Dorking Wanderers defeated Ebbsfleet 2-0 to take move into second spot on goal difference above unbeaten St Albans.