It’s ‘do or die’ as Diamonds and Hednesford face off in basement battle

The two clubs have been stranded at the bottom of the Southern League Premier Central for a number of weeks now and their situations are becoming more hopeless as each game passes by.

For Diamonds, it has been a treacherous campaign and while a new board and new boss Chris Nunn have helped steady the ship, results haven’t improved with a 1-0 home defeat to Barwell and a 2-0 loss at Needham Market this week leaving them pretty much on the brink.

Diamonds are bottom of the table, now 15 points adrift of safety with just 13 games remaining. It is now miracle territory.

But the same can be said for Hednesford who are just one point and one place above Diamonds having played two games more.

The bottom two meet at Hayden Road on Saturday.

If one of them wins, there will be the tiniest glimmer of hope for them. For the loser, the writing will be on the wall.

If it’s a draw, the clock will be ticking for both. It really is now or never as far as relegation is concerned.

Nunn has taken a reflective stance for the most part since coming in at Hayden Road.

In fairness, the damage was done long before he arrived.

But he will be calling for one big effort from his team this weekend.

“I was under no illusions when I took the job of how difficult the task was,” the Diamonds boss said.

“We just have to keep going. We aren’t being battered and outplayed in games.

“We’re not a million miles away but I just feel that if we had got in here maybe 10 games earlier then we might have been able to attract those slightly more experienced players.

“It’s a tough job but we have to get on with it and try our best to enjoy it.

“We want to go for it on Saturday, it’s obviously a big game. There’s no point trying to get away from what’s at stake.

“What I have always said is that if you’re going down, you want to go down fighting as hard as you can.

“I am struggling to work any harder than what I already am to try to do what I can do for the club. It’s crazy how difficult it is.

“But I have taken it on and, on Saturday, we want to try to get a win.

“It can’t just be about a change in luck, we need to have that bit of quality.

“We will be looking for that win we need. I don’t want anyone to have any regrets. We have got to work as hard as we can to get a result for the supporters.”