By Brian Bennett
Ashington’s assistant manager Liam McIvor admitted that his sides’ clash against Liversedge on Saturday was ‘awful to watch’ – but said the 1-0 victory was a fantastic result in West Yorkshire.
Josh Gilchrist scored the vital goal in the 71st minute of a game which will not live long in the memory of both sets of supporters: “It was a fantastic result,” said McIvor afterwards, “No one cares about how well you play when you are where we are in the table because it’s all about getting the three points. It was a huge win today because teams in and around us have picked up points apart from Consett. For everyone connected with Ashington, only when they see the other results will they realise how big the three points were for us today. Now we face another huge game at home to Garforth Town on Saturday. We are 14th in the table but there’s only three points separating 12th placed Grimsby Borough and 19th placed Ossett United.”
He continued: “The game was terrible – the whole 90 minutes were awful to watch – but I’ll settle for that and take three points any day of the week. In the first half we got stuck and the ball was bouncing all over with no-one wanting to take responsibility. We couldn’t string three passes together and it was horrible to watch.”
He went on: “At half time the message to the lads was to try and relax and let the football do the work and to win those key moments in the final third. We talked about how one little bit of magic could get us a goal – and it happened.”
McIvor added: “Apart from the result, other positives for us today were that Marc Ellison returned to the side and got 90 minutes under his belt whilst Harrison Clark got back onto the pitch in the closing stages after being out of action for a month.”