Lancaster boss Mark Fell believes there are plenty of positives to take from performance against South Shields

Lancaster City should take plenty of positives after they almost became only the third team this season to take a point off the league leaders.
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That is the conclusion of boss Mark Fell after watching his men lose narrowly 2-1 at South Shields on Tuesday night – the hosts’ winning goal arriving late on in the second half.

Throughout the 90 minutes, City gave as good as they got against the full-time outfit, who are currently unbeaten in 11 games and top the NPL Premier Division by two points.

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Fell believes the sooner the heavily-funded Mariners are promoted and out of this division the better for everybody, as he believes they boast players among their squad who would not look out of place in League Two.

Lancaster City boss Mark Fell (photo:Tony North)Lancaster City boss Mark Fell (photo:Tony North)
Lancaster City boss Mark Fell (photo:Tony North)

However, the fact that his men went toe-to-toe with them should give them a huge amount of heart with two important home fixtures to come against Gainsborough Trinity at the weekend, followed by Stafford Rangers on Tuesday.

“You can see the difference on the pitch between a full-time team and one like us which is part-time,” said Fell.

“It’s not just the fitness, it’s the structure of how they play.

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“They are so well drilled. Everybody knows what they are doing and when they are doing it.

“It’s so clear to see in terms of how they are structured and they have that capacity to spend that extra time doing the work that they need to do and it does show.

“We were excellent though against them. We have actually been undone by a couple of defensive mistakes when in terms of how the game was going at the time, we were on top which is a bit of a sickener.

“Overall against a full-time side who is going to be able to keep the ball better than you, in the second half we looked the better side.

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“With 20 minutes to go, I was saying to my assistant Graham Lancashire that only one team is going to win this.

“Then they go up the other end and capitalise on mistakes of ours.”

The performance against South Shields followed on from a 3-2 success over Ashton United at Giant Axe at the weekend.

That results snapped a mini-slump in form which had seen them fail to win in their previous four league games.

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“I thought we played really well against Ashton on Saturday,” said Fell. “They are a good side and are in false position in the table at the moment.

“To come from behind twice to win, we showed a bit of resilience and confidence.

“We showed that we are able to react to a bit of adversity which was pleasing.”