CITY'S new stadium hopes may look bleaker this week, but the club's on-field fortunes are soaring.

Seemingly down and out of the title race not too long ago, at one point down as far as ninth in the table, they are back within touching distance of leaders Crawley Town.

The odds must still favour Crawley and Weymouth, who at the drop of a well-greased palm, can conjure up extra financial muscle to strengthen their squads, if and when required, but as the results at the weekend show, nothing in this league quite goes to script.

If City's six match unbeaten run is proof their revival is not a flash in the pan, a quick glance through the record books suggests they will need a barnstorming finish to the campaign to have any realistic chance of winning the title.

It's not mission impossible by a long chalk but the champions for the last 10 years have all won at least 25 games and seven of them 27 or more.

City will need to win 12 of their last 13 matches to achieve that 25 total but there is hope, not least with the fact that the eventual champions could well claim the title with one of the lowest points totals for years.

Conventional wisdom has it that championship-winning teams take two points per game but at this stage of the season, no-one has managed that.

You have to trawl back to the 1993/94 season to find champions who last won with an average points tally of less than two when Farnborough claimed the title with 82 points.

Could this year see another similar low points tally take the title?

City captain Carl Heeley believes so.

"Everything is still very much to play for," he said. "Normally you expect the leading teams to be taking on average two points per game but no one is doing that. We have to make the most of situations like this.

"Usually a points total of between 90 and 100 wins the league but it's going to be far less this time round."

City's revived title ambitions face a rigorous examination at Cambridge City's Milton Road ground on Saturday.

The fixture falls into the 'must-win' category but Heeley is optimistic, with City having won twice in their last three visits.

"Cambridge held Stafford and have beaten Weymouth so it will be a very tough game," he added.

"But it has been quite a happy hunting ground for us and if we approach it in the right way, which I'm sure we will, we can take something from there."