By Brian Bennett | Photo: Ian Brodie
Liam Wotherspoon scored his first goal for Ashington in the 2-0 victory over North Ferriby on Saturday – and was delighted to get off the mark.
However, the 29 year old said afterwards that securing the win was the most important aspect and that the club must kick on.
Wotherspoon – who joined the Colliers from Newcastle Blue Star earlier in the campaign – commented: “It was my first goal for the club today which I was delighted with but I was more pleased that we got the three points. It was one of those where we were hanging on for as long as we could for the last 10-15 minutes. We really dug in and got a chance with them (North Ferriby) piling forward and the ‘keeper coming up for the corner near the end. The ball broke to Liam Noble on the right and I just put the burners on and ran as quick as I could through the middle hoping he would play me in – which he did – and it was an easy finish.”
He continued: “We absolutely deserved it. For a number of weeks now we haven’t really been in a good place because we haven’t been getting the results we wanted but we’ve worked really, really hard in training, trying to implement some things and we put them into practice today. At this time of the season it is all about getting results and we knew that it was a massive, massive game for us today at North Ferriby. Yes they went down to ten men – but even before the sending off, we were dominating the game and I thought we played really well.”
He added: “It’s a huge three points but now we’ve got to kick on. There are some tough games coming up against teams who are in and around us but winning breeds confidence and we’ve got to make sure we win more games and hopefully keep the club in this league. We’ve got a really good bunch of lads with a blend of youth and experience who are all pulling in the same direction and hopefully if we stick at it and keep working hard in games and in training, the results will come.”
Newcastle-born Wotherspoon gave a special mention to the travelling fans who were vocal with their backing throughout: “It’s a long way to come and despite results not being the way we wanted recently, they have still travelled in their numbers,” he said, “The supporters make a difference 100 per cent and when I scored, the first thing I wanted to do was run over and celebrate in front of them as a big thank you for coming down. They could be doing other things on a Saturday but they have come to watch us and we are all really grateful to them for doing that.”
Ashington now move on to Tuesday night’s game against Blyth Town – one of Wotherspoon’s former clubs and he said: “I was at Blyth Town for a number of years and I know their management team of Gav Fell and Michael Connor will make it really tough for us – so we’ve got to make sure we’re up for the fight.”