South Shields boss feels for travelling support as Mariners suffer another away defeat

Elliott Dickman has admitted South Shields left themselves with a mountain to climb in Saturday’s defeat at King’s Lynn Town.

The Mariners made the long trip to Norfolk looking to improve their poor away record in what was the first of four consecutive games on the road. However, they found themselves a goal down just after the half-hour mark as Gold Omotayo fired home after Mariners keeper Myles Boney had palmed a Josh McCammon effort. Robert Briggs got Dickman’s side back on level-terms seven minutes later but veteran striker Jonny Margetts doubled the hosts’ lead just before half-time.

Both sides had chances to add to the scoring during a tight second-half but it was Omotayo that grabbed the fourth and final goal of the contest as he doubled his tally for the day in the final minute. That left Dickman to reflect on another frustrating day on the road as his side suffered an eleventh away defeat in 16 league games this season.

He told the club website: “It wasn’t a great game if I am brutally honest. It was a physical, competitive game and I think there were moments in the game when we dealt with it well and moments when we didn’t. They have a style of play that works for them here, it’s quite relentless and they try to make the game difficult. Mainly in the second-half, we dealt with it better but we always give ourselves a mountain to climb.

“When you come to places like this you’ve got to work hard, you’ve got to fight, you’ve got to be competitive and we had moments of that but we gift goals. It’s a bit of our Achilles heel as a team because we want to play, we want to try and dominate the ball and the understanding of when to do that, we suffer with it away from home and our away form has to be better.”

Dickman urged his players to ‘stand up and be counted’ as they look to reward their travelling supporters over the coming two weeks as they prepare to travel to Radcliffe, Farsley Celtic and Peterborough Sports in quick succession. The Mariners boss hailed the support his players received in Saturday’s defeat and believes both he and his squad owe it to the Mariners fans to improve their underwhelming record on the road.

He said: “We have a run of away games where the players need to stand up and be counted and make sure they aren’t letting this unbelievable amount of travelling fans down. It’s incredible, it’s week-in, week-out at home and it’s the same when we travel. Our fans are brilliant, they get right behind the team and this isn’t a short journey. To have as many people as we had here today was incredible. We owe it to them to put it right first and foremost.”

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