McIVOR: “I’M REALLY HAPPY”

By Brian Bennett | Photo: Ian Brodie

It was a smiling Liam McIvor who emerged from the Ashington dressing rooms following the Colliers’ 1-0 win over Stocksbridge Park Steels on Saturday.

Defender Ben Williams scored the all important goal as early as the fourth minute and although the Wansbeck side had to defend manfully, it took their recent points haul to 14 from a possible 21.

“It was a fantastic win,” said McIvor afterwards, “It wasn’t the best performance but it’s not always about playing pretty football, it’s about jumping into the trenches on occasions to win games when you have to – and that’s what we have done today. We’ve had three away games in ten days and have travelled hundreds of miles but we’ve collected seven points out of nine which is fantastic and I’m really happy.”

Looking back on the first period, he said: “In the opening seconds Stocksbridge had a chance but Scott Lowery and Ben Williams combined to made a great challenge otherwise we would have been 1-0 down. After that the game was wide open. It’s frustrating sometimes but when you are not playing well, you’ve got to work hard and get men behind the ball and that’s what we did. The message at half time was for the players to try and keep the ball a little bit better and for us to have a bit more width to our game. However, they (Stocksbridge) came out strong and had a lot of the play but didn’t really have any clear cut chances. As the game wore on we changed the formation a couple of times just to try and get more men in the middle and we even went to five at the back in the last five minutes. We had players putting their bodies on the line and there was some great defending.”

McIvor was equally pleased with the goal scored by Ben Williams: “It was well worked and proved to be an important first one of the season from Ben (Williams) but to be fair all the players have got to look to chip in. We don’t score from many set pieces but we’ve got a bit of a threat at the minute with having a bit more height in the box.”

He added: “This run of games has seen us move up the table whilst teams in and around us have dropped points. It’s still tight but we’ve got a big week ahead with two home games against Newton Aycliffe on Tuesday and Consett on Saturday. Hopefully we are now on the right path but we need to continue to pick points up.”