The enigmatic David Barber is a football fanatic. Having watched and played the game regularly throughout his childhood he landed his dream job in the International Department of The Football Association as a teenager in 1970.

Aside from a break to go to university, he has remained at The FA since, being the second longest serving member of staff. He now holds the role of statistician and historian, has a regular column on TheFA.com, which you can read by clicking here

Here the Barber brings us his thoughts on the weekend's fixtures, with a purely objective judgement of what he believes will happen, based on his experience and knowledge from watching over 5,000 games.

Middlesbrough 2-1 Birmingham City

Both of these sides could go down – or they could both stay up. Boro are very unpredictable at home: they lost 0-4 to Villa but beat the reigning Champions 3-0. The Blues have struggled to win – or even score – away from home, so I’m taking Boro to edge it.

Coca-Cola Championship 

Queens Park Rangers 0-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers

I watched R’s regularly in the ‘80s when they played in the top division and got to Wembley finals. You never know what they’ll do these days, losing badly at home to Leicester but then winning at Sheffield United last Saturday. Wolves, maybe, by the only goal.

Coca-Cola League One 

Swindon Town 1-1 Tranmere Rovers

I was a big Rovers fan as a student in Liverpool in the ‘70s, going to all those Friday night home games. Away games tended to finish 0-0 if Rovers were brilliant and 0-1 if they weren’t. Swindon are still struggling but they aren’t too bad at the County Ground.

Coca-Cola League Two 

Cheltenham Town 1-2 Wycombe Wanderers

Both on and off the field John Gorman’s Wycombe are very much geared up for promotion. The team has been hard to beat all season and, though Cheltenham have promotion aspirations of their own, Wycombe will be looking for three points now rather than just one.

Nationwide Conference 

Crawley Town 0-2 Accrington Stanley

It’ll be lump in the throat time for a lot of people, not least Stanley fans, if they make it back into the League after more than 40 years. They went out of The FA Trophy at a surprisingly early stage, suggesting that promotion is the big focus. It could be more than 2-0.

Nationwide North 

Vauxhall Motors 1-3 Northwich Victoria

Vics could finish in second spot, with Stafford perhaps too far in front. The latter can concentrate on achieving automatic promotion after their Trophy exit on Tuesday night. The Motormen could still avoid the drop but Vics will be one of the toughest to get any points from.

Nationwide South 

Lewes 2-1 Thurrock 

A play-off place is certainly in Lewes’ sights and they would be expected to win at home against Thurrock, who are mid-table and don’t score many goals. Goals guaranteed here: Lewes haven’t been involved a 0-0 draw yet this season and have won 3-2 on the last two Saturdays.

Do you agree with these predictions? Let us know how you think this weekend's results will go by clicking here