Dorking striker Alfie Rutherford in hot scoring form ahead of first National League South reunion with Hawks on Boxing Day

The Portsmouth-born striker was on target for Dorking Wanderers in last weekend’s FA Trophy loss at higher division Southend United.

That was his 14th goal of the season and his 10th in his last nine league and cup matches ahead of a festive reunion with Hawks in a mouthwatering National League South fixture.

Four days before scoring at Southend, Rutherford’s hat-trick had helped Dorking claim their best win of the season - 4-2 at an Oxford City side who would have opened up a three-point gap at the top of the table with victory.

Rutherford will face Hawks looking to add to his nine league goals in 2021/22 - only St Albans’ Shaun Jeffers (16), Hungerford’s Ryan Seager (13) and Dartford’s Ade Azeez (10) have more. Hawks’ top NLS marksmen are midfielder Jake McCarthy (6) and Tommy Wright (5).

Rutherford could be one of four former Westleigh Park regulars in the Dorking line-up on Saturday.

Striker Jason Prior was on the bench against Southend, while midfielder Josh Taylor started at Roots Hall. Defender Ed Harris has missed Dorking’s last two games due to injury but could be fit for Boxing Day.

A fifth ex-Hawk, midfielder Wes Fogden, is out with a long-term injury.

Prior’s goals catapulted Hawks to back-to-back promotions in 2016/17 and 2017/18 before he stepped back into the Isthmian League to sign for Dorking.

The ex-Moneyfields striker promptly netted 27 times in league and cup action as he won a third title in as many years.

Prior was also Dorking’s top scorer in 2019/20 and again last season, but this term has spent time out injured and has yet to score in the National League South.

Rutherford, who also started his career at Moneyfields, was Hawks’ top scorer during their one-season stay in the National League in 2018/19. His tally of 15 league goals from 25 starts plus 10 off the bench was 10 more than anyone else managed.

Despite that record, Rutherford found first team chances more limited in 2019/20 with boss Paul Doswell preferring to use two of his own signings, Jonah Ayunga and Danny Kedwell, up front.

Doswell said he didn’t want to lose Rutherford, but admitted the player hadn’t been a regular under him. In addition, ‘an unbelievable fee in the context of non-league football’ was too good to turn down, bearing in mind the country was in the first national lockdown at the time and Hawks had no income streams.

Doswell also didn’t want to see Taylor leave Westleigh Park last summer. ‘We made Josh a good offer - their (Dorking’s) offer was better. That’s how football works.

‘People say ‘little old Dorking’ but they’re not, they’re ‘big Dorking’. They’re extremely well funded.

‘Marc White (Dorking manager) has been a fantastic addition to the league. What he has done there is a great story.’

What White has done is to take Dorking from the Crawley & District League - where they played after forming 22 years ago - into the sixth tier of English football.

White will no doubt have reckoned Dorking could be in the fifth tier by now had last season not been null and voided.

Wanderers were five points clear at the top of the table, with a game in hand on second-placed Dartford, when clubs voted to pull the plug on 2020/21 in the wake of a funding crisis.

Dorking were on a five-game winning streak when the season was ended in mid-February, though St Albans were seven points adrift with three games in hand.

‘Dorking probably felt the same way we had the previous season (2019/20),’ said Doswell.

‘We were three points behind Wealdstone (when 2019/20 was halted) and we felt we could win the league.

‘Our season was a lot more advanced than Dorking’s was - we’d only played 14 games last season - but Dorking were the best side.’

Doswell is hoping history doesn’t repeat itself. In his first season at Hawks, in 2019/20, the club’s final league game of the regular season was at Dorking in March 2020. The first national lockdown soon followed.

This year, there is again renewed uncertainty due to the Omicron variant. Could Hawks’ visit to Dorking on Boxing Day end up being their final game for some time?

‘I am concerned about it,’ Doswell stated. ‘If we’re locked down for two, three, four weeks … at the level we’re at we can’t exist.

‘It is a concern.’