Peterborough Sports deliver one of the great results of their meteoric rise up the English football rankings

Sports faced some extreme circumstances with eight senior players missing for a vareity of reasons. Dean had to beg, steal and borrow players just to get 14 to the fixture. Posh have loaned young midfielder Chong to Sports for 28 days, while Yaxley returned former Sports full-back Dan Bucciero for the night.

Several players also performed out of position and the problems continued during the game as back-up goalkeeper Lewis Elsom had to go on as a right-winger following an injury to Dion Sembie-Ferris.

And yet Sports, who called off their scheduled fixture at play-off rivals Rushall Olympic because of a shortage of players, won 2-0 thanks to a great goal from midfielder Josh McCammon and a tidy finish from full-back Luke Warner-Eley.

Both goals arrived in the second-half as Sports moved to within a point of second-placed Coalville with a game in hand.

“You don’t get many nights like this one,” Dean remarked. “I haven’t experienced this many problems in a squad since the days we were bottom of a step 4 table. I haven’t been messing about with the number of players we’ve had missing. They’ve all been genuine absentees.

“We’ve had injury problems for a while now, but we’ve usually managed to get a competitive side out. Tuesday was extreme though and fair play to my lads for winning in those circumstances.

“It is one of our best results purely because of the problems. It showed me we are going to right up for the challenge for the rest of the season.

“I have one player Maniche Sani who has an ACL injury, one of the worst you can get in football, which requires an operation and yet he’s still playing!

“We started the game really well, but faded towards the end of the first-half. I made my concerns known at half-time, but the players really answered me with an outstanding second-half performance .

“The first goal was exceptional. Josh McCammon picked the ball up in midfield, played a 1-2 with Dion Sembie-Ferris and charged to the edge of the area before scoring.

“We were really comfortable after that against a side who had enjoyed a great result at the weekend. Gashy was outstanding at the back.”

Isaiah Bazeley, Richard Jones, Ryan Fryatt, Lewis Hilliard, Jim Stevenson, Dan Jarvis, Marcus Kelly and Jordan Nicholson were all missing at Tamworth and only centre-back Jones has a chance of returning at Barwell on Saturday (MJanuary 15).

“Barwell beat Coalville recently so it’s another tough game for us. If you catch them on a good day they are very dangerous.

“Jones coming back actually gives me a selection headache as Gashy was that good at the back!”