National North
Mark Bower says one victory will secure safety for Bradford (Park Avenue).
Bower, a strong manager of the year candidate, has steered Avenue to the brink of survival with seven games remaining.
Chorley visit Horsfall Stadium on Saturday and Bower wants to finish the job.
“One more win will almost certainly keep us safe,” Bower told Non League Yorkshire.
“Realistically 42 points was the first target to ensure safety.
“If we can win on Saturday and get to 44 points, we’re not going down on 44 points.
“That’s the first target, we’re not going to get to 44 points and down tools.
“We want to get as high as we can and finish above some of the big clubs who we are in and around us.
“It will be a good achievement (if we stay up) and we’ll be really pleased if we can get it done as soon as we can.
“I think everyone at the club should take a lot of credit – players, directors, owners, supporters, volunteers for being realistic in their expectations and not panicking when we have been on sticky runs.
“Everyone at the club also deserves credit for making good decisions to gradually improve our team and gradually get further away from the basement spot.”
Avenue were seen as the favourites to get relegated by some and as the season has moved on, they have compounded the critics.
Bower says his team philosophy has counted for a lot.
“If you’re talking about budgets we should finish bottom of the league,” he said.
“What we have is good characters, quality, young lads who want to prove themselves in the game and some experienced lads who are helping them through.
“We have a good blend and the lads enjoy spending time in each other’s company and playing together.
“That’s resulted in some decent performances and results in the past few weeks.
“We have had our ups and downs like any team does but the lads have done really well to get us to this point and we just want to see it through.
“Just look at the quality of the teams down there.
“Whoever goes down will be best team who has ever finished bottom of this league.
“I think it has been so strong and evenly-fought as anyone can beat anyone.
“Gloucester are a full-time team.
“Telford are splashing out five-figure transfer fees on players.
“That’s the kind of teams we are up against down there and it is tough.
“We rely on a solid core of players and we try to keep changes to a minimum and we have good team spirit and that can take you a long way.
“I think you’re seeing in the results in this calendar year such as going away to York, Blyth, Spennymoor on Tuesday nights and taking nine points shows just how hard the lads are prepared to work for each other.”
Four games unbeaten have taken Avenue to cusp of an achievement many doubted would happen.
Avenue have held promotion-chasers Gateshead and Kidderminster to draws while also beating Blyth Spartans and Spennymoor Town.
They had endured a mini-slump prior to the win at Blyth and Bower says the defeat to Gloucester City was a springboard.
“We played Gloucester and they had two shots on our goal and they scored two goals,” he said.
“We played really well, especially in the second half and we should have won that game.
“We didn’t but we took a lot of confidence from it into the Blyth game on the Tuesday and we started so well in that game as we were 3-0 up at half-time.
“That gave everyone a huge lift.
“I think we ruthless and clinical going forward against Blyth and we won the game comfortably.
“Gateshead was a real backs-to-wall nil-niller where you are under a lot of pressure and your goalkeeper played really well.
“Kidderminster, 0-0, was a very good one in that we were very controlled and we had the better chances.
“Any win away from home at Spennymoor is a good result.”
The 2-0 win at Spennymoor in midweek is the coup-de-grace of the recent run and Bower says his side were disciplined and deserved the win.
“When it was eleven v eleven I thought we had good shape and they weren’t really causing us too many problems,” he said.
“I thought we looked the greater threat with the likes of (Brad) Docherty and (Lewis) Knight upfront.
“(Oli) Johnson caused them a few problems and the problems we were creating led to the sending-off.
“That was a big turning point and made a big difference to the game and thankfully we did enough to get the win.
“At the back-end of the first half we hit the crossbar.
“At half-time they reset and went very defensive by sitting the back four deep. Effectively the striker dropped in to make a midfield five and they just said to us ‘come and break us down’.
“We had to be patient and on a difficult pitch it was hard to thread little balls through into tight areas and we needed something special to break the deadlock.
“Sam (Fielding) produced that for us to get us in front.
“Once we were in front and got the second, it did look like one winner then but they did have a couple of half-chances late-on.”