IT is safe to say that promotion has ceased to be a topic of conversation at 1874 Northwich following a run of three successive defeats.

But a semi-final success against Witton in their first match after Ian Street’s departure as manager at least put a smile back on supporters’ faces.

On Saturday, they play a first league game with Paul Bowyer and Wayne Goodison in temporary charge of the team.

Their opponents, Padiham, are partly responsible for precipitating Street’s exit following a 2-1 win at St Luke’s Barton Stadium earlier this month.

Bowyer said there would be no revolution after agreeing to step up and, true to his word, has recruited two players – Jack Lever and Scott McGowan – that have played for the club previously.

“They know what we’re about,” he said.

“The lads they’ll be playing alongside are familiar, and that will make it easy to reintroduce them.”

He told the Guardian that a pair of training sessions this week had provided an opportunity to reinforce a message the interim management duo sent to the players before they reached another Mid-Cheshire District FA Senior Cup final at Albion’s expense.

The attacking freedom they had that night will be encouraged against the Storks.

Bowyer added: “The response has been positive.

“We’re keeping it simple; we want to take the game to our opponents, whoever they are, and play to the strengths we have.

“I don’t want to talk much about what Padiham will or won’t do. Instead let’s focus on ourselves, at least for now.”

1874 start Saturday’s encounter placed fifth in the North West Counties League’s Premier Division.

Leaders Atherton Collieries, who visit Winsford next month, are 11 points better off with 10 games left.

“It’s not worth worrying about the table,” said Bowyer.

“That’s not intended to sound negative, but when we say we only want to worry about the next match then we genuinely mean it.

“The teams above us still have games to play against each other, and we will play Bootle and Colls here in the next couple of weeks.

“You never know what might happen, and there have been some unexpected results in the past week or so.

“There’ll be others, I’m sure.

“If that helps us, then we’ll try to take advantage.

“But for now our energy will go into trying to finish the season as well as we possibly can. That’s it.”