The five games in hand Altrincham had in early March have played themselves out, ultimately placing the side level on points and games with Worksop.

The two are neck-and-neck on 71 points with four games left, but the smart money would be on Alty, if it were to come down to goal difference.

They took a step nearer the Nationwide Conference last Wednesday (April 7) with a 1-0 win over Leigh RMI, in front of a crowd of 518.

As is their habit of late, they stumbled a bit against Bamber Bridge on Saturday, only able to carve out a 1-1 draw. However, a victory at Gateshead this Saturday will bring them that little bit closer.

Altrincham started brightly with a Tony Rigby free-kick but a grateful Craig Dootson on the Bamber net gathered the ball easily.

Bamber pulled themselves into the game with peter Smith and Andy Whittaker causing all sorts of problems in the Alty defence, and Stuart Coburn, a definite contender for player of the season, had to be sharp to get his hands on a rocket of a shot from Smith on 25 minutes.

Bamber were definitely the better of the two sides in the first half, obviously looking for some payback after their defeat at home to the Robins three weeks ago.

This pressure of theirs paid off eight minutes into the second half, when Whittaker tapped in at the far post, after Stuart Cliff struck a weak shot through a forest of legs.

This prompted a double substitution from Bernard Taylor, as he replaced Phil Power and Leroy Chambers with Martin McDonald and Keith Russell.

Russell, who has not hit the net since Aldershot two months ago, desperately needs to score to regain a measure of confidence. His eagerness tends to find him in offside positions, and many a scoring chance has gone begging because of this.

The leveller came on 68 minutes when new signing Gary Talbot flicked on a cross from the left with his head, which beat Dootson.

Anyone else have the feeling that it is going to go right down to the wire at Nethermoor on May 1st?

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.