United strengthened their hand in the race for National League survival on Saturday when they came out 2-1 winners over Maidenhead United at York Road.
A cracking strike from Aaron Barnes and a late winner from Elliott Romain capped a dogged team performance than was sprinkled with quality despite a very heavy pitch.
“A classic away day as far as the supporters are concerned,” said TUFC head coach Gary Owers after the final whistle.
“They watched their team put in an exciting performance, I thought at times. At the end of it we’ve got the right result and obviously another important three points.
“We took the game to them. It was wave after wave of attacks. In fairness to their goalkeeper everything that we threw at him stuck.”
Maidenhead made it very difficult for United, and had chances in the first and second half. After equalizing in the 69th minute through a Ryan Upward free-kick, the two sides traded blows until a powerful low ball into the box by Brett Williams was expertly turned in by Elliott Romain.
“As in previous games gone by our lack of being able to kill the game off might of cost us. True to form they get a free-kick on the edge of the box and the lad flicks it in the top corner. You think, well, we’re going to disappointed here with a point, and even at times, for five or ten minutes it looked like we could’ve lost it. We re-grouped and went back at them and obviously we’re all pleased to get that winning goal.”
Owers is ready to capitalize on the growing confidence of the squad.
“It has grown and I can feel it in the dressing room and I hear the lads talking about it. We’ve had a good spell, it’s only been two weeks, listen, three or four weeks ago it was all doom and gloom, and it has been this week as well, in fairness, every time I look at the BBC website there is something negative. All we can do is try and be positive and fight ourselves and play ourselves out of the situation that we’re in.
“We’re one game at a time; we’re one place at a time. We’ve hit form at a good time in the season. We’ve got good games coming up against all the teams in and around us and if we can find some consistency, and we’ve found a little bit in the last two weeks, although it’s going to have to be longer than two weeks, I think we have a great chance.”
United’s cause was helped no end by the support of the Yellow Army who came in great numbers to support the team. The team and the management staff were visibly lifted by the fantastic support.
“I expected it. I’m not taking anyone for granted but I thought they’d be here and they were.”