Will Feathers Fly When The Magpies And Robins Meet?

These two sides are showing that ambition shouldn't be limited to full-time sides.

Still around it as we prepare to put the clocks forward, the winner of Saturday evening’s live BT Sport clash will fancy their chances of gatecrashing the top seven.

Feathers will fly when the Magpies and the Robins get their claws into each other in front of the cameras.

Alan Devonshire’s team are starting to spread their wings and fly just when their EFL dream appeared to be grounded.

Inflicting a rare defeat on Chesterfield, they followed up that stunning win by embarrassing title chasing Torquay United.

Alty have also found some form again and refuse to be discounted. On Tuesday they dispatched King’s Lynn Town 3-0 to keep them in with a shout.

For Maidenhead, the goals they are scoring may be stealing focus.

But the form of Taye Ashby-Hammond, 22, between the posts has kept them in touch with the promotion places.

“We had a bit of a dodgy spell but we brought it back with some high intensity work ethic and on the ball the quality has been high,” he told the National League’s Oliver Osborn.

“We haven’t been making mistakes and the attitude of the boys has been fantastic.

“Every season you go into with a clean slate, but the manager bought in a great bunch of new lads over the summer.

“We felt we could finish high up in midtable, but we have high aspirations going forward now.”

The bigger the club is, the harder they fall.

Maidenhead have a history of success on BT Sport too, last season stunning Stockport County and at the start of this campaign beating Wrexham live on the box too.

The on-loan Fulham man said: “It’s nice to be in the spotlight now once in a while.

“The National League is a whole mystery in itself. Every game, something different can be thrown at you.

“Being at this level has allowed me to learn a lot since stepping up from U23 football. For a goalkeeper it can only make you better, this level of football will only improve you.”

Altrincham have managed to get games on, and have played seven more than their hosts this weekend.

Phil Parkinson’s assistant Neil Sorvel told us all about their season, and despite having played more than most up there he says the play-offs can’t be ruled out.

“Tuesday night was our biggest winning margin this season,” Sorvel said of the 3-0 success.

“We’ve been up and down recently, and the clean sheet was welcome. We haven’t been playing as well as we had been during the first few months of the season. Hopefully now we can find a bit of form.“

He added: “The play-offs are still in sight. While it’s mathematically possible we will keep going for it.

“We’ll keep chipping away at it, but we just want three points more often than not - that’s our main aim.

“We set ourselves a points target at the start of the season and we haven’t reached that yet.

"Once we get to there we can maybe start looking beyond that.

“Incredibly, Maidenhead have got seven games in hand on us - we’ve just got to crack on with it and see where it takes us.”

PHOTOS: ALTRINCHAM FC, DARREN WOOLLEY & MAIDENHEAD UNITED