ON a bad-weather day that left the non-league football schedule in tatters, Ben Harrison was left fuming by his side’s performance.
Witton Albion were beaten 3-1 at home by lowly Stafford Rangers, while the matches for Northwich Victoria, 1874 Northwich and Winsford United were all postponed on Saturday due to waterlogged pitches.
Harris was fuming with the character of his side after they became the first to lose to Stafford since early November.
They were 3-0 behind before Tom Hoyle netted in the 62nd minute but was as good as it got for the hosts.
“I’m struggling to know what to say,” said Harrison in his post-match interview.
“We’ve been schooled, out-thought, out-fought.
“The last two results, Mossley and Atherton, we hadn’t been and we felt hard-done-by to only pick up a point.
“This felt like an acceptance to get beat and it hurt me.
“There was no fight. We can say that comes from within, and it does – it’s got to hurt you enough.
“I’m shocked at that acceptance.”
He added: “The performance wasn’t too bad. We played some decent stuff, but it’s not all about playing decent stuff.
“They were 3-0 up and throwing into tackles. Jack Walls made a tackle, that’s the only one I can think we hit in anger and we were three down.
“It’s so hard to take and it hurts. Does it hurt the players enough? It’s a genuine question we have to ask because we don’t come back in games when we go down 1-0 and there’s so few positives I can think of.
“The goals we conceded were poor. We’ve all got to look at ourselves and question each other.”
Witton host high-flying Lower-Breck on Tuesday and Harrison said: “We’ve got a lot of work to do in the next few days because we’ve got Lower Breck on Tuesday and if we turn up like we did today we’ll get beat comfortably again.”
He added: “We’re not being consistent enough.
“We’ve gone from the start of January thinking we could have a bit of a go at climbing up the table to looking over our shoulders again now and worrying about going down.
“That’s not being dramatic, that’s being realistic because we’re only six points above it.
“If we keep playing like that and not picking up results when we’re performing alright, we’ll be right in it.
“You only come out of it with hard work. When you’re facing adversity, you just have to work harder.”
New dates are still be announced for Vics’ postponed trip to Whitchurch Alport and 1874 Northwich’s visit to Brocton.
Vics played a hastily arranged friendly against Helsby instead on Saturday, winning 4-2 at Padgate Academy in Warrington thanks to goals from Matty Harrison, two, Mama Djabi and Will Bentley.
Winsford United’s postponed FA Vase fifth round clash away to West Didsbury & Chorlton has been rescheduled for Saturday, February 14, with tickets bought in advance remaining valid.
Barnton were defeated 2-1 at home by Market Drayton in North West Counties Football League First Division South.
A Matty Coughlan free kick levelled the contest in the 70th minute but Market Drayton, who had led since the fifth minute, restored their winning lead two minutes later.
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