Hawks bid to avoid unwanted club record on day admission prices have been slashed for National League South visit of Braintree

Adult admission has been cut from its normal £15 matchday price to just £5 for the National League South clash with Braintree at Westeigh Park.

The hope is that Hawks can attract a crowd figure that significantly improves the current home league average of 958.

That’s down from the 1,398 average Hawks boasted in manager Paul Doswell’s first season, 2019/20.

Back then, the club were second in the sixth tier table and challenging for the title when the pandemic hit.

Now, three years on, they are still second in the NLS - five points behind Dartford with two games in hand.

Though Hawks possess the only unbeaten away league record in the top seven tiers, their home form has been poor or late.

In all, they have lost five of their last eight fixtures at Westleigh Park, including their last three to Worthing (1-5), Dartford (1-3) and Eastbourne Borough (1-2).

Never in the club’s history have they suffered four successive home league defeats.

They will try and avoid that fate against a Braintree side who have not won away since the end of October and who have only won once in their last nine league fixtures, scoring seven times.

Regarding the home form, Doswell told The News: ‘Losing three in a row at home is unacceptable for us.

‘The performances haven’t been bad, but the results have been disappointing.

‘You can take getting beat by Dartford, but it was pretty hard to take losing to Worthing when they scored from pretty much every chance they had.

‘Against Eastbourne, we played well enough - we certainly deserved a point.’

Given the injury problems Hawks have had, Doswell added: ‘The players deserve massive credit.

‘We’ve gone to places recently with just 14 players. It’s been difficult trying to affect games when you’ve only got a few subs.

‘We’ve had 14 players at times - Ebbsfleet have 28 full time pros, Dartford have 24 players. It’s disappointing when we’ve had six to eight players out all the time.

‘We were playing well against Eastbourne, but then Oscar Gobern suffered a knee injury.

‘We’ve got Oscar out, we’ve got Danny Wright out with a knee - it’s endless.

‘We need a bit of luck, we need a four-month break from injuries.

‘If we can keep Paul Rooney fit, if we can keep Jason Prior fit, if we can get Joash Nembhard fit, we will be very close this year.

‘Who’d have thought Ebbsfleet would lose five of their last seven games? No-one would have thought that - it gives everyone a glimmer of hope.’

An extra boost for Doswell has come in the return of Tommy Wright, who came on in the 75th minute of the 3-1 New Year’s Day win at Eastbourne.

The plan is to now send Wright out on loan with a view to getting him back totally match fit for the season run-in.

‘For me, he needs to be getting 90 minutes, he needs to be scoring goals,’ said Doswell. ‘We’ve got a fantastic relationship with (Southern League Division 1 South club) AFC Totton, but we’ve had National League clubs enquiring about him, Barnet enquired about him,

‘Hopefully we can get Tommy out and then get him back in March and April.

‘Sam Magri the same. He was playing well against Slough (on December 10) but took a kick on the ankle. He could do with a month loan to get games.’