After a long, hard slog during March, which featured five away games in six fixtures, Bury Town finally return to Ram Meadow to take on Thamesmead Town tomorrow (3pm).

It has been a difficult period for the Blues, since the turn of the year, slipping well adrift of the play-off zone after a run of just two victories in their last 14 games, since beating Dereham 2-1 on January 2.

But manager Ben Chenery took great encouragement from Monday night’s goalless draw at Aveley, in a battle of the mid-table teams.

“We have to take great heart from Monday night, to put in a good performance,” enthused Chenery.

“March was a hard month, and I’ve questioned the lads because we haven’t won away since Soham (4-1 win on Boxing Day). That’s not for the want of trying, or poor performances.

“But hopefully we’re through the sticky period now, and can get into some home games.

“I’m looking forward to finishing the season strongly to, wrap it up.

“We are at home to Thamesmead, and later this month we go into the busy Easter period. I just want to make sure we play some good attractive football at home, to excite the crowd.

“We won three games over Christmas (against Soham, Wroxham and Dereham) and got ourselves into a good position.

“I knew where we need to improve, and unfortunately we were no able to do this, but we are now building a squad for next season, as you could see from our back four the other night.

We are working hard behind the scenes, and although goalscorers win you matches, its defenders who win you leagues,” added Chenery.

Bury are sitting in 11th spot, which is probably the highest position they can hope to finish – they are seven points behind 10th-placed Aveley, with five matches remaining.

Tomorrow’s visitors, Thamesmead, are eight points adrift of Bury in 16th place.