St Helens Town had to settle for a point in Saturday’s game with Winsford – their first point since 10th January – but they lost ground in the relegation fight with Barnoldswick also collecting a point and AFC Blackpool beating Bootle.

A protest against chairman Karl Oyston before Blackpool’s game with Leeds United at Bloomfield Road swelled the gate at the Mechanics Ground to over 500, boosting their NW Counties neighbours who went on to pull off a shock victory against Bootle, a win which lifts them a point ahead of Town and two ahead of Barnoldswick, leaving Bacup four points adrift at the foot of the table.

With two teams going down at the end of the season, Town still have it all to do to avoid the drop.

They are not in action again until Monday, 30th March, when they travel to Surrey Street to take on high-flying Glossop North End, who are pushing Runcorn Linnets hard for the Championship and who are favourites to win a Wembley place in the FA Vase Final, following a 2-0 away victory at AFC St. Austell in the first leg of their semi-final, with the home second leg to come on Saturday.

Town will secretly be hoping that the Cornish side can give them a tough game 48 hours ahead of St Helens’ vital relegation match.

Visitors Winsford United began last Saturday’s game on the front foot and enjoyed any number of chances to score, but wasted several gilt-edged opportunities before Town could gain a foothold in the game.

However, Ian Price’s side rode their luck and eventually began to create chances of their own, but none were on target in the first half.

Then, with the clock winding down to the interval, Winsford launched a hopeful long ball which Sam Marshall did well to keep in play out by the corner flag.

In a flash, he produced a wonderful pin-point cross directly on to the head of centre forward Kyle Riley, perfectly positioned in front of Town keeper Rory Crowther and the big attacker gave the stopper no chance with an accurate header which sent his team in 1-0 up at the break.

St. Helens emerged in the second half a different proposition.

Despite missing a glorious chance to equalise almost from the re-start, Town mounted an attack down the left and Ryan Taylor did well to latch on to a long pass and produced a marvellous cross from the touch-line for James Rushton-Woods to level the scores at 1-1 with a header which gave goalkeeper Charles Masters no chance.

Immediately afterwards, Rushton-Woods produced an almost identical finish, only for the ball to flash past the wrong side of the post, before Liam Hynes’ header met with the same fate moments later.

Either of which could well have won the game for the home side, who were much the better side in the second half.

Unfortunately, the game was a niggly affair throughout, Winsford picking up three yellow cards to Town’s one and ten minutes from time, St Helens having been awarded a free kick 25 yards out, Marshall tried to stop Adam Birchall placing the ball, pushing him away on two occasions, which led Birchall to lose his cool and push the Winsford player in the face, giving referee Hitchell no alternative but to administer the red card.

Marshall did himself no favours by laughing to his team-mates but he walked away without punishment, despite being the instigator of the incident which left Town a man down for the remainder of the match.

On reflection, a 1-1 draw was perhaps a fair result, but this was a missed opportunity, given the result at Blackpool.

Both Barnoldswick and AFC Blackpool are back in action again before Town’s game on Monday, Bacup having two games in the same period.

Hopefully, St. Helens will not suffer any further damage before stepping out at Glossop.

With only three more games remaining after that, all at Brocstedes Park, Ashton Athletic away on Easter Monday, followed by Maine Road at home on Saturday, 18 April and Silsden at home three days later, it is going to be an uphill battle to preserve their Premier Division status.