Sir.-Six cup finals - there is no other way to describe how important Basingstoke's last six games are this term.

Following the humiliation of that FA Cup exit at Bracknell and the squandering of the chance of a £10,000 tie with Barnet, the team that finished fifth last term now looks as if it will struggle to attain the top-13 finish required to gain automatic qualification to the Conference South.

Failure to make the Conference South is tantamount to relegation and it is to be hoped that both squad and management will pull out all the stops to give the town the Conference South side that its population size deserves at the very minimum.

That said, if the club can get into the Conference feeder league, it would be nice to see more locals going through the turnstiles next season to back their local team.

-Ian Davies, Kings Furlong, Basingstoke.