Consett manager Tony Fawcett has hailed his side after they brought their long winless run to an end today with a hard-earned 2-1 win at Stockton Town.

It was 13 games since the Steelmen had won a game, stretching all the way back to the 1-0 success at Lincoln United on 17 September under previous boss Andy Coyles.

Tony and his management team took over on 8 November, and drew their first two away games, at Sheffield and Grimsby Borough, with a home defeat to Brighouse Town inbetween.

But he told BBC Radio Newcastle after today’s game that they believed a win wasn’t far away, as the players have worked so hard in training and games.

“We feel like it’s been a long time coming. The lads have done a lot of training of late because of the bad weather and their performance [in our last game] against Grimsby Borough was good.

“It’s been a bit stop-start for us. There’s undoubted ability at the club. We just need some games to get that showing. We felt there was a good performance coming and we put that on today so we’re really chuffed.

“We finally got the three points that we deserved and I thought the lads warranted that today – they were really good.

“We fancied ourselves a little bit today. We had a game plan to play against Stockton and we knew they would have a lot of the ball.

“We managed the game well without the ball and took our chances when they’ve come, and to be honest we maybe could have had another couple on another day, as we missed some really good chances.”

Today marked the midpoint of the season, and results from the Boxing Day round of fixtures leave Consett 13th in the table, having climbed three places after the win.

“It’s a tight league,” said Tony. “There’s about four points separating us from fourth from bottom and eighth from top.

“A lot of teams are the same sort of standard, but we wouldn’t be in the game if we weren’t looking upwards. We want to be making play-offs and getting towards the top end of the table.”