Carruthers backs Matlock Town to maintain challenge ​

Their friends in this respect are Warrington Rylands who went to Radcliffe, Matlock’s rivals for a play-off spot on Tuesday night, and came home with a resounding 3-0 victory meaning that Radcliffe are now winless in five matches.

The Easter results, which saw Matlock beat Atherton 1-0 last Saturday at the Proctor Cars Stadium before drawing 1-1 at Belper on Monday, leave Matlock in seventh spot and contesting fifth place with Radcliffe, Hyde United and Marine.

Radcliffe currently are fifth, three points ahead of Matlock with Hyde in sixth with a one point advantage over Martin Carruthers’ men. Marine are in eighth, one point behind the Gladiators.

Carruthers will therefore prepare for their final home game of the season against Bamber Bridge in a positive frame of mind knowing that there is still all to play for. The Preston side secured their play-off slot with a 2-1 home win against Lancaster City on Easter Monday.

Asked if Matlock could still qualify for the play-offs Carruthers replied: “Yes of course we can!”

“Looking at Saturday’s games, Radcliffe are at home to Gainsborough and Marine go to Hyde. Ideally we’ll be hoping for a Gainsborough win and a draw at Hyde, of course we’ll have to beat Bamber Bridge and then aim to win at Marine.

"There’s everything to play for and we need to now put in a massive effort to get where we want to be.”

Carruthers is wanting Matlock to finish their home season on a high.

He said: “We want to give our magnificent fans something to shout about on Saturday. We’ve drawn a few at home recently but when we’ve had hiccups, other teams have been helping us out as Warrington Rylands did on Tuesday. Now we must ensure we help ourselves.

"Bamber Bridge have had a great season and have already made the play-offs, hopefully they’ll have half an eye on the play-off games, but they may not so we have to go out there and win the match on Saturday.

"We’ll be emphasising this in training and ahead of the game, we need to be on top of our game and we’ll be going out to attack and look for goals.”