Festive fixtures will define Stratford Town's season

STRATFORD Town manager Carl Adams has promised to “fight tooth and nail” to ensure the club maintain their place in the Evo-Stik Southern League Premier Division for a third consecutive season.

Tuesday night’s 2-1 home defeat to Slough Town has seen Stratford slip down to 17th in the table, just one point above the relegation zone.

With more than half of the season to go, Town have plenty of time to fend off any threat of the drop, particuarly over the Christmas period, where Town will face many of the so-called ‘lesser’ sides.

Over the next six weeks, Stratford will play the likes of Hayes & Yeading, St Neots, Kings Langley and Cinderford — all teams expected to be fighting for survival come the end of the season.

“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” declared Adams.

“Sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say, there are probably ten to 14 teams in this league that are better than us.

“Although we are not yet at halfway, we have played Slough and Basingstoke twice and by this time next week we will have played Merthyr and Redditch twice as well. They are two clubs that dwarf us with both money and stature.

“But soon we will be facing the likes of Kings Langley and Cinderford.

“They will be real six-pointers and it is these games that will ultimately define our season.

“Although we are on a bad run, we still have to remember, we still have seven teams below us. For us to finish above those seven teams would be like us swimming the Channel.

“We are growing. This is our second year in this league. If you look at other leagues, 90 per cent of teams go back down in either their first or second year.

“That’s not me looking for any kind of angles or excuses, but the bottom line is, we will fight tooth and nail to stay in this league for another year.

“I still think it will probably get a little bit worse for us before it gets better.”

Tuesday’s defeat to the Rebels was Town’s third game in a row where they have failed to claim victory despite going ahead.

Stratford lost a two-goal lead to draw 3-3 with Cambridge City, whilst last Saturday they led at Basingstoke before going down 2-1. That run of results would rightly sap the confidence out of any team, but Adams feels his young side have what it takes to bounce back at Merthyr this weekend.

He said: “I think from the outside in, it could be seen that confidence might be a problem for us now.

“But the blessing we have got, is that these boys are very young and nothing really fazes them.

“The problem we have at this moment in time is just getting over the line. It’s a case of trying to educate them into how to win a game again.

“The lads are giving me everything they’ve got, it’s just that little bit of naivety that’s costing us. When we’re clearing the ball, we’re just clearing it anywhere and it’s coming back at us again.

“We’re not being smart footballers at the moment and it goes back to managing a game and realising what we have to do to get over the line to get that win, that I believe, will kick us on.”

Saturday’s testing trip at Merthyr is followed by a derby clash at Redditch on Tuesday night.