Dean Nicholson sends clear message to Heaton Stannington players ahead of relegation run-in

Heaton Stannington manager Dean Nicholson claims his players must be prepared to “run through that wall” if his side are to survive this year.

Nicholson spoke to Mark Carruthers after the Stan came off a major win against Bishop Auckland.

The Stan have a three-point gap to the relegation zone, as Nicholson touched on the remainder of the season:

“It is down to four cup finals left, we treat every single game the same, home and away we just got to go give 90 minutes.” 

“With everything they’ve possibly got and as long as they run through that wall for me on a Saturday afternoon, we’ll see where we end up.” 

Their win last time out has helped them massively, but the job is far from done.

Nicholson said: “Our job certainly seven days ago before the Grimsby game was can we start pulling other teams back into it and I think we’ve done that with the six points, but yeah, it’s a tough league, everyone’s involved.” 

It is back-to-back wins for the Stan, having two weeks earlier suffered a thrashing to Bridlington Town:

“Following the Bridlington game was a downside for us, obviously they come here, and they deserved to win but it was a tough one to take, but they bounced back with two clean sheets and beat Grimsby and beat Bishop Auckland. 

“Huge six points out of six, which is tough in this league, so to get six out of six is a huge congratulations to them all.”