MALVERN Town have their sights set on a new club record after they officially secured their status at Step 4 following a disciplined 2-0 win at local rivals Evesham United on Easter Monday.
Goals from Jordan Annear and Harry Clark - both set-up by the brilliant Jack Watts - was enough to mathematically secure Malvern's place in the Southern League Division One South for next season.
The Hillsiders could yet finish in the play-off places, but it would take a small miracle and co-manager Lee Hooper has his sights set instead on chasing down the club's highest points tally ever achieved at Step 4.
"I am not going to rule it out but we would need to win all our games and hope for a miracle," said Hooper. "But all we can do is concentrate on our targets and that is to record the highest points tally the club has ever achieved at this level (Step 4) and that's 48 points.
"So with that in mind, we are pleased with where we are but we still have work to do and finish this league campaign of well to achieve that goal.
"Our ambition at the start of the season was to stay in this league and we have now done that. We knew we were better than that and we would be fighting in the top half of the table.
"The next season, one of our targets will be, if we don't do it this season, to go again and push for those play-off places."
And looking back at the 2-0 win at Evesham, Hooper was delighted with how his side carried out the game plan.
"Really pleased, a really disciplined performance," said Hooper. "We knew Evesham were going to come at us at home and they needed to win to keep their play-off hopes alive so we sat in the low block and we knew we would get opportunities at the other end, which we did.
"But everyone worked so hard, they all put a shift in. They left nothing out there and got their rewards with the three points."
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