IT IS time to make big ideas a reality and to start making plans for next season at our local non-league football clubs.

With just one game left, Waltham Abbey are at the point of the knife as they prepare to play-off for promotion up to the Ryman Premier division.

Their final league game is a derby against Redbridge on Saturday. Earn at least a point there and a play-off match with Brentwood awaits, which is what captain Lee White wants.

“Bring it on,” he said. “Redbridge will be a tough game but we must get a winning mentality for the play-off. Redbridge will want to prove they can match us. We still have a lot to prove.”

Abbey sit fourth in Ryman Division One North in just their second season in the division.

“We want to play as high as we can,” White said. “All the players should be raring to go. I want to get fourth place and break 80 points. It means a lot to us.”

Elsewhere in the Ryman North, Waltham Forest’s fledgling 27-year-old boss Wali Ojelabi is reflecting on a tough campaign against the drop in his debut season as boss.

Forest are safe on points now, one place above the drop-zone.

Ojelabi says he never doubted Forest would survive, but said it has been a tough spell for him.

“We’ve been playing all matches with a second team since Potters Bar,” he said. “It has been stressful as boss sometimes, but we want to end on a high.”

Forest take on rock-bottom Hillingdon Borough this Saturday as their season’s curtain call.

Meanwhile, at Leyton, boss Troy Townsend might like to draft in his son to achieve promotion out of Division One North next time.

Seventeen-year-old winger Andros Townsend plays at League One Yeovil – on loan from Tottenham Hotspur – while dad has been easing Leyton away from trouble in a tough post-relegation season.

Mission accomplished, he can now plan for the future.

“It will be nice to finish the season with a win,” he said. “We have had indifferent form lately. It’s hard to keep things ticking over when there’s nothing to play for. We were looking like relegation candidates but, since the turn of the year, the lads have been fantastic.”

Townsend wants to end Leyton’s spell in the Ryman North soon.

“We believe we belong in the Ryman Premier. Hopefully I can secure the players for next season. We need more goals and a creative player. If we get them, I think we can push for the play-offs next time.”