Market Drayton Town to 'step back and assess' after Northern Premier League relegation confirmed
Market Drayton Town’s relegation from the Northern Premier League was confirmed on Monday after a 26th defeat in 31 games this season.
The Gingerbread Men’s proud 13-year stay at step four of non-league came to an end as Kidsgrove Athletic inflicted a 4-1 Greenfields defeat on Matt Johnson’s side.
Johnson, who was appointed in January, saw his side lose 5-0 to rivals Colne on Saturday and had long since stated relegation was a case of when and not if. He insists the club are focused on reining in second-bottom Kendal Town in the remaining seven games to not finish as basement boys.
Johnson, a former Drayton player, said: “It would’ve been very disappointing if it were in our sights. But that third-bottom relegation play-off spot had gone, that magic 25 points on top of what we had would not have been enough.
“So even if the ‘Project 25’ – as we labelled it in the beginning – was on it wouldn’t have been enough. It was done weeks ago and that disappointment had sank in, I’d dealt with that.
“If I’m honest it’s really been about giving that element of support to the club, to get their head around it in recent weeks. It was too much, even if we hit our mini-target it wasn’t going to be achieved.”
Drayton have won just once this term, on the opening day in August. Performances and results have improved under Johnson, but time and points have got away from Town.
“The club has to look and assess it,” he added. “Whatever decisions were made previous to January from every angle were not right.
“The realism is the club is where it’s at, it’s not just been this year, it’s been a number of years now, sometimes it’s not a bad thing to step back and assess.
“Look what Marine did, they got relegated (to step four) and within six months are playing Tottenham in the FA Cup. They get a million quid, 1,300 people through the doors and the club is set up for five or six years.
“It’s difficult for the club to take having been associated with the level for so long. It’s the small things, we won’t be supplied by standardised kit sponsored, it gets run by the local county FA rather than the FA. We’ve got to deal with it and then it’ll become the norm.
“For the chairman Mick Murphy and current committee and board, they’ve worked tirelessly over 10 years and the last five have been tough.”
