The pressure will be on Gary Mills and his York City side for tomorrow’s clash at Chester FC.
In the relegation zone for much of the National League campaign, York have been in resurgent form over the last two months to give themselves a fighting chance of survival.
Their run was halted on Tuesday night, though, as they fell to a surprise 2-0 loss at home to Bromley, a result that leaves them two points adrift of safety with five games remaining.
And with time running out, this weekend’s trip to the Lookers Vauxhall Stadium could prove pivotal to the survival hopes of the Minstermen and Mills, formerly in charge of Wrexham.
“We know we’ve got five games to go and get enough points to stay out of that bottom four, and all the other teams down there are in the same situation as us,” Mills told the official York website.
“Woking are out by one point but they know they’ve got to go and win the next game, if they don’t then chances are ourselves or Torquay could leapfrog above them.
“That’s how it’s going to be, it looks like it might go all the way and we’re probably in a situation where we’d probably take that now, after tonight's result.
“But we’ve got to try and get a result at Chester on Saturday, we’ve got two away games now, two places where we can go and get results because we’ve proven we can go and get results at quite a few grounds now.”
While not mathematically safe, Chester all but secured their National League status for another season with the 1-0 win at Torquay United last weekend.
The win took them to 52 points and up to 13th in the table, and it would take something quite extraordinary to see Jon McCarthy’s men sucked into a relegation battle for the final games.
Braintree Town, Woking, Torquay and York look the likely quartet to be fighting it out, with North Ferriby United and Soutport looking destined for the drop.
Maidstone United, unbeaten in eight games, created some daylight between themselves and the bottom six with an impressive 2-1 win at home to Barrow AFC last weekend.
