North West Counties League First Division North
Lee Ashforth says Campion have entered a stage where every game is a massive – starting with the home clash with fourth-bottom Atherton LR tomorrow.
With seven games to go, 13th placed Campion are only four points above the relegation zone in a very congested bottom half of the table/
The stakes are high and Ashforth ranks the Atherton battle as a must-win.
“We have seven league games left and three of them are against teams below us,” Ashforth told Non League Yorkshire.
“Those three are the ones you would class as the important ones, Saturday being one of them.
“We have games that we feel are winnable and it is important we win those three games.
“We still have Golcar, Pilkington, Cleator Moor to play which will be the difficult ones.
“We played Ilkley a couple of weeks ago and we said that was a game we needed to get a result from.
“We did and Atherton is going to be another important one.
“We have to make sure we get the result.
“We certainly don’t want to be going and losing the game.”
Campion are boosted by the arrival sharpshooter Nathan Perks, the ex-Glasshoughton Welfare striker.
Campion hope he will fire them to safety.
“We tried to sign him at the start of the season,” Ashforth said.
“We had a couple of chats with him and we thought we were going to get him but then we got put in the North West Counties so he decided to go to Nostell.
“We understood that.
“We’re really chuffed to get him in, he’s a goal-scorer.
“We lost Mark Ferguson which left us a bit light up top and we have been looking to bring someone in as out-and-out goal-scorer.
“Getting Nathan in is a massive plus for us.
“He has been on the bench at Frickley so he wants to get back playing.
“Now we’re at the business end of the season, hopefully he’ll give us that little push to make sure we stay in the league first and foremost before we look to build for next season.”
The idea of Campion sitting just above the drop zone seemed impossible in December when they had an outside shot at a push for the top five.
“When we hit Christmas we were in a comfortable mid-table position,” he said.
“I remember speaking to you and it was kind of ‘can you kick on and get to the play-offs’?
“I said it was probably out of reach but certainly if you had asked me the question ‘do you think you’ll get dropped towards the bottom three’?
“The answer would have been no.
“But we have because after Christmas we lost five on the trot and that caused us the issue.
“We went into the Ilkley game and suddenly we’re panicking.
“I have been there before with Harrogate Railway.
“I remember at the time we didn’t change it because we thought we had enough and we ended up going down.
“This time I’ve said that can’t happen so we have had to make changes.
“We have changed personnel, we’ve brought in Perks, Ben Kendall so we’ve said ‘it has not been good enough so we’re changing’.
“Hopefully it’ll make the difference.”
For Campion, it is campaign that has been disaster-filled.
The move to the North West Counties triggered an exodus of players and Ashforth will be glad to see the back of the season.
“It has been a nightmare,” he said.
“We have lost influential players at times.
“We lost our centre-half Andy McCreadie for the season.
“He came back a couple of weeks ago on the bench and got injured straightaway.
“We have had Aidan Kirby who has missed a quarter of the season through suspension.
“It is little things like that on top of us being moved to the North West Counties and a lot of the players leaving before the season starting.
“It has been a season to forget but we can’t forget it until we’re safe in the league and we can move on.”