PREVIEW: Big basement battler for Peterborough Sports to follow outstanding derby victory

The city side slumped to the bottom of Division One South of the Evo Stik League after a miserable Boxing Day loss at Spalding and a plucky defeat at title-chasing Bedworth last Saturday.

But a brilliant New Year’s Day win over high-flying Stamford AFC gave the club a massive lift ahead of their big relegation scrap at Romulus tomorrow.

A Lewis Hilliard penalty and a Mark Jones strike defeated the Daniels at PSL.

“We thoroughly deserved the win,” Dean enthused. “We had a bare 14 players, a couple of whom shouldn’t have played, but we battled hard and played well. We had a strong 11 out though. If I get that 11 out every week we would climb away from the bottom quickly.

“We were awful at Spalding. It was probably the lowest point of my career, but although we went to the bottom after the Bedworth game we played pretty well and they had to score two great goals to beat us, so I wasn’t that surprised we beat Stamford, especially as we’d given them two tough games earlier in the season.

“Romulus went back to the bottom on Monday, but they pushed the second best team in the league (Alvechurch) all the way and they’ve improved greatly in recent weeks. It’s another 3G pitch for us, but we have the players who can play well on that surface.”

Dean was full of praise for the Jones brothers, Richard and Mark who played against Stamford, despite not feeling fully fit. Centre-back Richard won the sponsors’ man-of-the-match prize.

“Teams play long ball football in this division,” Dean added. “So you need a ‘meathead’ at the back to head everything and Richard was outstanding.”

Sports still have a lenghty injury list, but key midfielder Lewis Webb could return tomorrow.

Stamford dropped three places to seventh after their defeat at Sports ahead of a tricky game at Lincoln United tomorrow.

Spalding are at Sheffield FC.