With just six scheduled Thurlow Nunn Premier League games this weekend, Felixstowe & Walton United have the opportunity to open up a nine point gap at the top of the division when they host a Wivenhoe Town side struggling at the wrong end of the table.

With their two nearest rivals involved in FA Vase action, the Seasiders will be wary of a potential banana skin game against a side with just one win to their credit so far this season.

The Dragons have always been one of the clubs the home side have struggled to overcome, irrespective of league positions, and it will be exactly 17 years to the day the sides first met as senior clubs in an FA Vase fixture.

Wivenhoe have been perennial strugglers in recent seasons and travel to the Goldstar Ground with just that one win from their opening nine games, a 2-1 victory at basement club Fakenham Town a month ago, but there have been no heavy defeats in their poor run and they lost by the only goal of the game at Brantham Athletic on Tuesday evening.

Seasiders joint manager Ian Watson played in that first meeting back in 2000, when the visitors were members of the then Isthmian League, playing alongside a certain John Wark, and since then results have always been relatively close.

Both Watson and O’Donnell know there can be no room for complacency with the midweek win over Whitton in the League Cup a good example of how sides will raise their game to try and become the ones that take that first scalp.

Other than Hastings (suspended) and Mallardo (injured) the joint managers have a full squad available, and will be hoping for another bumper crowd supporting the side.

Elsewhere, Brantham host Haverhill Rovers while Ipswich Wanderers travel to Long Melford.