Wisbech St Mary assistant manager believes his side can avoid the drop

Wisbech St Mary assistant manager Johnny Alflatt believes the side has enough good players to avoid relegation.

The Saints are bottom of the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League Division One North but they picked up their first win of the season against Diss on the Saturday before lockdown.

If the league restarts on Saturday, December 5, as is now planned, Saints will travel to Norfolk side Sheringham before a crucial home game against fellow strugglers Cornard United, who are currently fourth from bottom.

“We are raring to go,” said Alflatt. “I can understand why some of the teams didn’t want to play on December 5, three days after lockdown, but we are raring to go.

“Then we play Cornard and that’s a massive game for us. I saw them play Haverhill Borough, who are also down there with us, and I think we have enough to beat both of them.

“We have enough now to be competitive in every game, to start winning matches and get ourselves out of the mire. There’s some good players here. We have definitely got the squad now to get us out of this.”

Alflatt, who has previously been on the management teams at King’s Lynn Town Reserves and Wisbech Town, added: “We have got a squad here now that wants to be here and wants to play for Wisbech St Mary – it really is a great dressing room.

“We have got to stay up. It’s a long way back if you drop down to Step 7 football. We need to do everything we can to stay up and then look again at what we can do next season.

“We have a manager in Stuart Beckett who is in it for the long term and the club is in a good place.

“We do probably need to bring a couple of players in though. In the last game before lockdown against March, although we had a full bench, when Ryan Lennon and David Weaver-Pope got injured, we didn’t have a forward and a midfielder to replace them, so it’s obvious where we need to get players in.”

While unable to train because of lockdown, Alflatt says the players have been doing running sessions using the Strava app and are also going to be doing some virtual HIIT (high-intensity interval training).