Saunders determined to keep his Rams firing

Aylesbury Utd v Petersfield Town. Billy Adcock, Utd, gets a cross in past Petersfield's Lewis Hyde in the reverse fixture. Picture: Jake McNulty

Aylesbury United will be the visitors and they are a club who will be well known to football followers following their past exploits in the game.

The club shot to fame during their FA Cup run in the 1994-95 season when they reached the third round proper.

But it was their famous ‘duck walk’ goal celebration which caught the media’s attention and thrust them into the spotlight.

They have also previously won the Southern League and spent one season in the equivalent of the National League in the late 1980s.

Since then, though, the club has fallen on hard times.

They dropped to the equivalent of playing Wessex League football and only won promotion back into the Southern League in 2013.

They also no longer play in their home town, having ground shared with first Leighton Town and now Thame United as the club tries to find a way to return back to Aylesbury.

United head to Petersfield battling against relegation from division one central – they sit one place and four points above the drop zone going into tomorrow’s match.

Victory at Love Lane combined with results going in their favour elsewhere would put Aylesbury United all but safe, with most of their rivals having only three matches left to play.

Petersfield may have little to play for in the closing weeks of the season.

But manager Ian Saunders will not accept his players putting in anything but maximum effort as they look to finish the campaign strongly.

‘We owe it to the other sides down at the bottom of the table battling to stay up to put in a proper shift in this game,’ said the Rams boss.

‘They will come here battling for their lives as they know if they can get three points that will go a long way to ensuring they don’t go down.

‘I will be making sure our players prepare in the same way as we normally do for this game and we will have to make sure we are right at it to get a result for ourselves.

‘We still want to finish as high up the table as possible so it is important to keep up our good home record in the three home matches we have remaining so we get the points to help us achieve that aim.

‘The final fortnight of the season is important and I don’t want us to tail off in these final few matches of the campaign.’

– GRAEME MOIR