Josh Baggs spoke after his goal secured all three points at Ashton United on Saturday.
The full-back darted into the box to head home a Glen Butterworth cross in the 72nd minute which is only his second goal for the club.
Josh opened by providing his overview of the game by saying: “We knew the next two [Ashton and Ilkeston] were absolutely massive, to get anything out of these games is huge to keep us in the playoffs and keep trying to kick on for the rest of the season.”
The 22-year-old followed by describing his game-winning goal: “The gaffer spoke to me at half-time and said that I need to try and get into those areas at the back post and gamble on balls in, I just thought I’ve got licence of free will here, and just chanced it. I’m not normally up there to put them in the back of the net to be honest.”
Next he mentions how the togetherness of the team is helping them in these big matches by exclaiming: “It’s a great dressing room, and when we play we’re all a good group of mates and I think over the course of a season, that alone gets you 10/15 points anyway and you can see when we play, we all graft for each other.”
‘Baggsy’ then looks ahead to Saturday’s enormous task at hand when 6th placed Ilkeston Town visit the Map Group UK Stadium in a classic ‘six-pointer’: “We are confident, we’ll train hard this week but we have to be confident if we are to keep this momentum going, especially if we are to end up in these playoffs, you don’t want to be going into that with your heads down.
“We have done great this season, we did think we’d have a chance to be somewhere around the playoffs, even if people have written is off at times throughout the year, but there’s only seven games to go and hopefully we all stick together and keep going.”
Josh closes by speaking on the importance of the fans ahead of Saturday’s game, which falls on the annual Non-League day, and he urges the people of Stockton to get behind the team for the final seven games of the season: “The last few games, especially at home, are massive for us, if we can get the ’12th man’ in, that’s going to kick us on, like it did last season and so many times already this season.”
Supporters can purchase their tickets for Saturday’s game now at https://stocktontownfc.ktckts.com/event/ilkest2425/ilkeston-town.
