DANNY Johnson believes his Radcliffe Borough side can continue to punch above their weight and move away from danger in the Evo-Stik First Division North.

The Belvoir Stadium outfit remain fourth bottom after they were undone by an 80th-minute goal in a 1-0 defeat at home to promotion chasers Glossop North End on Saturday.

Boro had plenty of chances to win the game themselves, and had a header from Tom Hulme cleared off the line moments before conceding the only goal of the game.

Victory moved Glossop up to third place in the table, comfortably in the play-off places.

But Johnson believes his players should take great heart from the fact they were able to compete.

“As long as the finances remain the way they are at this club then we will always struggle,” he said.

“Glossop fielded a number of lads from Liverpool on Saturday, and you can’t tell me they would be travelling all the way to Radcliffe to play for £10 a week.

“But while we have one, if not the smallest budget in the division, we can still stand toe to toe with a team like Glossop.

“We know we need better players to be competing for honours, but it is a chicken and egg situation. To pay for those players we need to attract sponsors, investment and bigger attendances, but you can only do that by getting results on the pitch.

“In the meantime, though, the players we have are giving their all and I am convinced we have the quality already to end the season comfortably in mid-table.”

Boro showed that quality at Bamber Bridge recently, when they turned over another promotion contender 3-1 on home turf.

But they followed that up with a 3-2 defeat at Kendal Town, throwing away a 2-1 half-time lead.

Kendal visit the Belvoir Stadium on Saturday, weather permitting, for the return fixture, and Johnson is confident his players will be able to set the record straight.

“They know they should have been out of sight by half time at Kendal,” said Johnson.

“With the chances we missed, we could have been five or six goals up.

“It was only individual errors that cost us, but you get that at this level.

“The players we have are not used to having to put in a consistent performance, week in, week out.

“Their levels will go up and down, but the longer we work with them I believe that consistency will come.

“They have shown in their performances against Bamber Bridge, Kendal and Glossop that the quality is there, it is just a matter of learning how to produce it on a more consistent basis.

“That is the beauty of football, though. We go into the match against Kendal believing we can set the record straight.

“They have all sorts of problems off the field, but their players will feel the same way, that they have beaten us once and can prove a point by beating us again.

“It is just up to us to produce that bit of quality in the final third that was maybe missing against Glossop to secure the three points and start moving further away from the bottom two.”