Zeros and heroes: the best non-league football stories you may have missed

After 42 games, Dover Athletic sit at the foot of the National League with zero points. They have scored 34 goals but conceded 97 on their way to achieving literally nothing. There will, however, be an asterisk next to their name when the campaign ends in two matches’ time. The Whites were given a 12-point deduction for failing to fulfil fixtures last season, putting an almost entirely new squad on the back foot before a ball was kicked. The deficit was made up thanks to two victories and six draws, leaving them where every other team began. The part-timers’ first league win came in January against Eastleigh – a result celebrated like “we had won the Champions League”, one player told the Guardian – to avoid the ignominy of going a calendar year without a victory. They specialise in glorious failure. For example, Dover went 5-2 up at Hollywood’s Wrexham, only to lose 6-5 thanks to a 98th-minute winner. A visit to Bromley is their next chance of moving off nought before the crunch final-day fixture at Weymouth, who have also been relegated, to ensure the season wasn’t all for nothing.

History has been made by Hertfordshire’s Cheshunt: they reached the last 16 of the FA Trophy, won the county cup and on Monday secured promotion to the National League South through the playoffs. Their opponents in the final were Hornchurch, who may have felt fate was on their side when they came from 2-1 down in the 87th minute against Enfield Town in the semis. Cheshunt triumphed, though, thanks to goals from Amadou Kassaraté and Zack Newton. Kassaraté, a former Senegal youth international, fits perfectly in an eclectic squad that includes players with senior caps for Saint-Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Vincent and