WITHAM Town are hoping that a bumper crowd will enjoy Friday night football at the Village Glass Stadium as they bid to claim local bragging rights off an Essex rival in Ryman League division north tonight.

Rather than the usual Saturday afternoon fix of action, Witham fans will be able to see their team early as they entertain Heybridge Swifts tonight (kick-off 7.45pm).

Witham head into it on the back of an upturn in form as they followed a win at VCD Athletic with a 1-1 draw at Phoenix Sports last weekend and manager Adam Flint is hoping that it is an experiment that supporters welcome.

“It’s a game where it’s all about bragging rights,” said Flint.

“We have struggled a bit at home for some reason since Christmas, but we feel confident now after the last couple of results and hopefully we can get a big crowd in there for the game.

“It was myself and James who had the idea and we contacted (Heybridge manager) Jody Brown to explain that there was no dodgy intent with players not being available on the Saturday or anything like that.

“It was just that we wanted to try to offer people something a bit different and hopefully it will work and people will come out and support us.

“Bowers did it recently and had about 250 people turn up and we’re trying to get the word out to let people know.

“We had over 150 come in when we played Maldon on a Tuesday night so it would be nice to get over the 200 mark for this one.

“Both teams know each other well and there are links between us like (former Witham captain) Lewis Godbold playing for them and the fact that James played under Jody during his career.

“It will be interesting.

“It’s a bit of an experiment, but we’ll see whether we can get people there.

“I think our crowds have been a bit higher this year as we’ve tried to bring in more local lads and hopefully this will be something that people like and we can do more of in the future.”

Flint said he had no injury concerns for the game, but as well as local bragging rights being at stake, Witham’s record of not being beaten by the same team at home and away this year was also on the line after Swifts won the reverse fixture 3-1 at Scraley Road in November.

“No team has beaten us twice this year in the league and we want to keep it that way,” added the Witham boss.

“We’ve got three games in a row where teams have beaten us once already and we want to make sure it’s not twice.

“We had it against Phoenix and we drew with them on Saturday, but we now have it with Heybridge and then it will be the same the week after with Great Wakering.

“We said to the boys at the start of the season that no-one does us twice and we want to keep that.

“Heybridge beat us 3-1 at their place, but we felt we should have won it as we missed a penalty when we were leading one-nil and we think we’d have gone on to win if that had gone in.

“So we want to set that record straight.”

Witham will head into the game feeling confident after taking four points from their last two games, including one from their 1-1 draw at Phoenix Sports last weekend, when Tom Robinson’s late strike earned them a point.

It has been a good response to a run of disappointing results and Flint feels Lady Luck is finally shining on his team again.

“I think we’ve just had a little bit of luck go our way finally,” he said.

“We were excellent at VCD but had the luck to go with it and I’ve seen that the belief is back with the boys now.

“I think it has freshened us up.

“It also helped at Phoenix that I was able to keep the same side from the Tuesday to the Saturday as I haven’t been able to do that too many times this season.”