Slough Town in 'dreamland' after resurgence but still hungry for more success

Photo credit: Zak Rana

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Slough Town boss Scott Davies has said the club’s recent rise from potential relegation candidate to relative mid-table security is something that was ‘unimaginable’ just a few weeks ago.

The Rebels have won seven of their last nine league matches - defeating some full-time and well-resourced teams on the way - to lift themselves to 14th in the table, now 11 points above the National League South relegation zone.

They’re closer now in fact to the division’s play-off spots (nine points) than they are to the bottom four, and while Davies is delighted by his side’s resurgence, he remains wary of being dragged back into trouble if the Rebels become complacent and start to believe their own hype.

For the past few weeks, the Rebels have been one of the division’s most in-form sides. On Boxing Day, they travelled to local rivals Maidenhead in the relegation zone and in serious trouble having shown little form in the latter weeks of 2025. Somehow, they managed to scrap their way to a 3-1 win over the Magpies with only 10 players for most of the match, and since then they’ve defeated Chesham United, Eastbourne Borough, Hemel Hempstead Town, Chelmsford City, Maidstone United and Weston-Super-Mare.

Strangely enough, they lost the two matches most expected them to win against bottom club Chippenham Town away and Tonbridge Angels at Arbour Park.

Tuesday’s controlled and disciplined win over title-challengers Weston is perhaps the most impressive of the lot. They limited their opponents to half chances and created many good moments on the counterattack. Substitute Ruben Shakpoke secured the 1-0 win with a towering second half header, but they also missed a first half penalty through Wiktor Makowski.

“We’re in dreamland,” said Davies. “We believe we can beat these teams in individual matches but to put seven wins out of nine on the board is just incredible for us.

“During the game, as a player, I felt comfortable. We limited them to very few clear-cut chances whereas I felt we had a couple of good chances we didn’t take. The penalty being one and Tyrique Clarke had another one which was flashed across the box.

“To limit them to half chances shows we did well. But we also carried that threat on the counter once again. But the most important thing was the clean sheet. We had to see it through and that togetherness and camaraderie is sky high. The willingness to keep the ball out of the net was evident to see.

“We’ve only conceded 10 goals in 10 games which isn’t bad at all. We’ve also kept four clean sheets in that run, and we were conceding two goals a game on average before that, so we have tightened up. I do think Adam Desbois has been outstanding. He’s made some unbelievable saves. That’s the beauty of having someone who is top drawer for the level.

“We always fancy ourselves to score and I think we’re the fifth highest scorers in the league now, so we know we’ve got goals in us. We just need to keep them out at the other end.”

He added: “Ruben’s header is a thing of beauty. The way he’s leaped to get on the end of it, I’ve not seen in a very long time. I’m really pleased for him because he’s been out for a couple of weeks. But it looks like he’s back in the swing of things with an assist on Saturday and a great goal last night.”

They’re now closing in on the top half of the table and will fancy their chances of picking up another positive result at home to ninth placed Horsham on Saturday.

Davies deflected any talk of a late push for the play-offs, saying they’d take each match as it comes and not get too far ahead of themselves. But their last three performances point to a side capable of beating anyone in the division on their day. They thrashed Chelmsford City 5-0 at home just under two weeks ago, showed character to come from behind and beat Maidstone United 2-1 with second half goals from Basil Tuma and Jaiden Drakes-Thomas on Saturday. While on Tuesday they contained Weston - one of the best sides in the division - to deservedly win a third game in a row. It’s left Davies contemplating what might have been had the Rebels not stumbled into an injury crisis and loss of form earlier in the campaign.

“We’ve got 16 games to go, that’s still a third of the season,” said Davies. “We’ve spoken about our targets and objectives and what we want to achieve. We want to start looking up the table, but if you start to do that, suddenly you can get caught and things could look very different.

“But we’ll take where we are now. It’s unimaginable to think of where we were to where we are now. Credit to the lads, they’ve been outstanding. They’ve applied themselves very well in these matches. We’ve been up against it but have come out on top.

“We’ll take it game by game. The frustrating part is that we were riddled with injuries earlier in the season. It’s a shame that we had that blip earlier in the season. For seven or eight weeks we were under the cosh a bit, but God knows where we’d be if we’d had a full-strength squad throughout.”