“I’m 44, I shouldn’t be anywhere near the Southern League” - Cinderford Town boss Matt Driscoll on survival chances after Shaftesbury win
“We are the Southampton of the Southern League. Our budget was by far the smallest but we've got a group of boys who would run through a wall for the team and for me.”
Cinderford Town boss Matt Driscoll is hopeful his team can escape the drop zone by the end of the season given their recent results.
Off the back of a 3-1 victory against fellow relegation-battlers Shaftesbury on Saturday afternoon, Driscoll credited the newly-found squad depth as a key reason in his side’s recent upturn of form.
“It’s absolutely massive having four boys on the bench and just to be able to bring that quality on, we never had that at the start of the season.
“If you look back at the team sheets from the start of the season you’ll see my name in about nine or 10 games which is not ideal.
"I'm 44, I shouldn't be anywhere near the Southern League to be honest."
The Foresters have now picked up nine points from their last six games, almost doubling their points tally from their first 19 games.
“We are new to the league and unfortunately that meant a lot of the boys couldn’t do the travelling. That’s where we were which meant we had to rebuild again.
“The big thing for us was going 2-0 down to Malvern, coming back to 2-2 and knowing we could come back in games whereas at the start of the season if we went 1-0 down I couldn’t see us coming back.”
Cinderford currently sit nine points from safety, rock bottom of the league, while their opponents from the weekend sit one place above the drop in 18th.
“It was a fairy tale season last year. This year the ambition is to 100 per cent stay in the league. That will be a task.
“I would definitely say promotion last season was unexpected. The ambition last year was to stay in the league and that went to hoping for mid-table, to achieving play-offs to winning them."
The Welshman is hopeful his side can stay at step four with some crucial bottom of the league clashes upcoming.
“We’ve just got to not lose. We’ve got Tavistock away, Thatcham twice, we’ve just got to keep winning.
“If we get out, we get out. If we go down, we go down and all we can do is take it game by game.”
Driscoll credited the 77 fans in attendance for the game at the weekend as himself and his players were clapped off the field.
“The crowds are getting a bit bigger now. As you lose, automatically the crowd will drop off but now we’ve started winning they’ll come back. They were clapping the guys off today and we can’t ask for much more.
Cinderford play host to play-off chasing local rivals Evesham United on Tuesday evening.
“We’ve got to take momentum in. Look at the games we’ve had. We’ve played Melksham, we’ve played Bristol Manor Farm and they’re all up there.
"Evesham are in the play-offs but they’re going to come here and they’re going to be in for a tough task.
“If we play like we did today, we’ll have a go at anyone. Whatever happens this season as long as we have a go that’s all I can ask for."
Southern League Division One South
Cinderford Town 3 Shaftesbury 1
Willand Rovers 0 Evesham United 1
Falmouth Town P Bishop's Cleeve P
Hellenic Premier Division
Brimscombe & Thrupp 1 Corsham Town 4
Longlevens AFC 2 Pershore Town 4
Mangotsfield United 0 Cirencester Town 2
Slimbridge 1 Hereford Pegasus 1
Thornbury Town 2 Fairford Town 0
Tuffley Rovers 3 Westfields 2
FA Vase (Round of 16)
VCD Athletic 0 Hartpury University 1
