Whitstable boss Keith McMahon hopes this weekend’s match helps show the togetherness at the club - as the Oystermen support one of their own.

Under-14 player Miles Stockwell is undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with aggressive bone cancer.

The club will use Saturday’s home game against Sittingbourne to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust, as well as Stockwell and his family, through donations to support them.

“It’s going to be massive on Saturday, it’s just going to show the togetherness at the club,” said McMahon, who himself has two sons.

“Young Miles, an under-14 player, was diagnosed with cancer and he is going through chemo now. It’s something we are putting on for him and, hopefully, all the club will come out and support that.

“I have got a boy the same age and it’s heart-breaking.

"Football takes a little bit of a back seat when you hear things like that but, knowing how great the club has been, everyone will get behind it.

“Hopefully there will be a few more fans cheering us on as well, which will help us get the result we want, and people can show their feelings towards him and show how we will treat him as one of our own.”

On the match itself against the Brickies, who lost 1-0 at home to Burgess Hill on Tuesday, McMahon added: “I know they’ve lost a few players recently but it’s going to be a tough game for us.

“But we are at home, and we are going to get our heads down.

“If we do that, we will be fine and will get the results we want to get.”

Whitstable have slipped back down to fourth-bottom in Isthmian South East after back-to-back defeats.

McMahon stated: “There’s no margin for error anyway.

"As I said to everyone from day one, we got out of a bad position - don’t forget we had a point and we were cut adrift four months ago - so we did ever so well to get to where we did.

“We are in it (a relegation dogfight) but we knew that anyway. We have a tough one on Saturday against Sittingbourne then, obviously, the week after that we go to Cray Valley.

“We are not silly. We know we have got some tough games, but we know there are games that we believe we can win as well.”

McMahon felt a couple of decisions went against his team in their 3-0 loss at his old club VCD last weekend, but he conceded they probably didn’t deserve anything out of the match anyway as they struggled to deal with the pace of Youssef Bamba. He scored twice while defender Ben Gorham added a late third.

In the second half, midfielder Zack Jobe came off the bench for the Oystermen.

“He was training with the club in pre-season and went to Margate under-23s,” McMahon explained.

“But he came back to training and looked quite lively.

"We have had a few missing in recent weeks, so he came on. He did okay.”

Defender Jack Miles is expected to return for Whitstable, having been out with a hamstring problem, while one or two more new faces may be signed in time for the Sittingbourne game.

Midfielder Luke Griffiths has left and scored for Sheppey in their 2-0 Southern Counties East Challenge Cup win at Kennington on Tuesday.

McMahon commented: “He wasn’t fit to start for us because he’s had niggling injuries, and he said he wanted to give it a rest until the end of the year to get fit.

“Then obviously, he has gone over there, which was a surprise to us.”

Defender Junior Baker (ankle) remains a doubt.