MIKE Ford remains upbeat despite Banbury United now having to secure promotion through the play-offs.

Third-placed Taunton Town’s 2-0 defeat at Cinderford Town on Tuesday ended both sides’ Evo-Stik Southern League Division 1 South & West title aspirations.

But the Banbury boss always thought a top five place was more realistic.

“I’m not disappointed at all,” said Ford, whose side host Taunton on the last day of the season tomorrow.

“We have never been in a position where the title was ours to lose.

“It’s not as if we’ve had games in hand to go top or points clear or anything like that, so we don’t feel we’ve missed out.

“I’m sure Taunton will be extremely disappointed, because if they’d won on Tuesday and beaten us this weekend, the title would have been theirs.”

Duran Martin (hamstring) and Felipe Barcelos (virus) are both doubts, but United are otherwise at full strength.

Taunton inflicted an embarrassing 7-1 defeat on the Puritans when the two met last month, but Ford has promised there will be no repeat.

He said: “We’d had a scouting report on them and I’d prepared the team tactically for that and I got it wrong.

“The blame lies with the manager for that one, not with the players, but I won’t make that mistake again.”

North Leigh face an injury crisis as they entertain already-relegated Bashley.

Despite opening the scoring through Jamie Cook, the Millers went down 3-1 at home to Bishops Cleeve on Wednesday in the third of four matches during an eight-day period.

It’s taken a heavy toll, with Cook among the casualties with a groin injury, alongside Elliot Osborne-Ricketts, Jon Steedman (both hamstring), George Seacole (thigh) and Steve Davies (ankle).

“Whoever puts their name down gets a game, basically,” said manager Mark Gee.

“The ridiculous thing is that we’ve had four games this week and we only played once in the league throughout the whole of November.

“You have to fit a quarter of the season into a single month and this is what happens.”

Callum McNish is banned.

Didcot Town are back to full strength for their trip to Swindon Supermarine.

Graham Edney returns after being unavailable for Tuesday’s 2-1 win at Burnham, while Jack Self is back from an ankle injury.

TOMORROW’S SQUADS

Banbury Utd (v Taunton Tn, home): from Harding, Welch-Hayes, White, Wise, Westbrook, Stanbridge, Gunn, Browne, Nash, Johnson, Howards, McEachran, Blackstock, Barcelos, Hopkins, Davies, Bell, Martin.

North Leigh (v Bashley, home): from Foster, Elkins, Hole, Westlake, Woodley, Else, Turk, L Williams, M Williams, Brown, Fullerton, White.

Didcot Tn (v Swindon S’marine, away): from Bedwell, Learoyd, Carnell, Longford, Ballard, Janes, Organ, Beer, Collins, Thompson, Gannon, Woodhouse, Noble, Powell, Tanner, Barney, Reid, Edney, Self.