Toolstation NCEL Premier Division
Paul Marshall insists Garforth Town are not giving up on the second promotion/play-offs spot.
Garforth are two points behind Eccleshill United who have two games-in-hand but they play each other next week.
The dramatic victory over Handsworth kept the promotion dream alive and Marshall said regardless of how the season ends it has been fantastic campaign for the club.
“It has been a great season in regards the position (in the table) for the club – not for me individually because I think the league is the most average it has been for ten years and anybody can beat anybody,” Marshall told Non League Yorkshire.
“Sometimes we have let ourselves when we should have won.
“It has been a missed opportunity (on the title front).
“This could have been Garforth’s year.
“We’re going to keep going to try and get second spot but if we fall short we’ll back at the season with a lot of pride.
“You know Garforth as well as anybody and since they came back into the NCEL they have never finished than 13th or 14th so the club has moved forward.
“(The Handsworth win) keeps us in and around Eccleshill and we’ve still got them to play.
“That’s the big game and I should be in Glasgow (that day) to see Country to Country so the wife is going on her own.
“I said to her if we still had a chance (of second place) I wouldn’t be going but I might drive straight to Glasgow after the final whistle.”
The Handsworth win will be remembered for James Burgess’ incredible overhead kick winning goal in the dying seconds.
Garforth had been trailing 1-0 going into stoppage time until Burgress scored twice..
“It was an unbelievable goal to win it,” he said.
“I’ve given him the man of the match but he was pretty poor with his overall performance!
“But he’s had a week in Dubai and proposed to his girlfriend and bought her a lovely ring.
“So he hasn’t trained so his touch was a bit off but then he scores two goals.
“We deserved at least a point.
“In the final third our quality was poor.
“We had a lot of possession but we didn’t get any decent balls in.
“It was a bit like the Sherwood game where they had all the ball and couldn’t break us down in the second half.
“But we were 2-0 up.
“Handsworth only had one goal to defend and I thought they dropped back too deep too early and that’s what has cost them ultimately.
“They had nothing up-top and Toby (Wells) has made one save in the second half which was a good save.
“I thought myself ‘this is exactly the same as the Mansfield game’ when they scored an early goal and they just sat and defended and we couldn’t break them down.
“Then I thought of the original game which got abandoned.
“We were 2-0 up and Rikki Paylor had got sent off and now he’d scored.
“You start thinking all negative thought but it is nice to get on the end of a bit of luck.”
The overhead kick was greeted by the sight of Marshall sprinting 20 yards to mob Burgess along with the rest of the Garforth squad and management team.
“I got carried away because I didn’t think the goal was going to come,” he said.
“I don’t usually get that excited but that was exciting.
“That’s what fans want to see.”