Athletic inching closer to history

.By Mark Carruthers

Oscar Fletcher believes Redcar Athletic have found ‘the right mix’ as they close in on a historic promotion into the Northern Premier League Premier Division.

Just under 12 months have passed since Carl Jarrett’s side wrote their name into the history books by becoming Northern League champions and securing a first ever season in the fourth tier of the Non-League game.

Far from being happy to consolidate at a higher level and merely surviving, the Steelmen are thriving and have produced a stunning return during the first two thirds of an already historic campaign.

Their midweek win against an ever-improving Blyth Spartans means Redcar have collected maximum points from 27 of their 33 games and have scored 118 goals in the process ahead of yesterday’s home game with Ossett United.

Thoughts are quickly turning towards when, not if, the Steelmen will secure the league title and yet another promotion – and Fletcher is hoping to get the celebrations underway as soon as possible.

RAMPANT: Redcar Athletic are closing in on the NPL East title

PICTURE: Chris Whiles

Momentum

He told The NLP: “You want to look towards the end of the season and it’s easy to say it’s one game at a time but you are always thinking when could we have it wrapped up.

“Where will the points come from? But ultimately, in the last couple of weeks, we have done a good job.

“We will take it one game at a time. The lads aren’t speaking about it, but I think we are looking at the table and trying to ride on that momentum.”

“We knew at the start of the season that the lack of expectation was a good thing. But we knew with the squad we had the aim was to get promoted.

“We kept the base of what we had last year, we brought in some very good players and where we are at the minute, in a good space, we still have work to do. We knew we had a really good chance of success and we had a good chance of promotion if we kept ourselves right.”

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