Tom Shaw proud of Gainsborough Trinity's home form

The result means Trinity lost only twice on their own patch over the whole campaign, winning nine and drawing ten of the other 19 games.

And whilst the club’s away form hasn’t matched up to that achieved at home, meaning Gainsborough go into the final game at Whitby Town 18th but safe from relegation, Shaw is pleased with how things have gone at the Martin & Co. Arena, albeit also disappointed his team couldn’t beat bottom-of-the-table Grantham.

He said: “I’m proud of the home points return which has been brilliant, one of the top five in the division, and it’s something we worked hard to achieve and ultimately is why we’re seven points clear of any danger below us. We’ve massively overachieved.

"I think this game was a good example of why we’re 18th and not further up. We were sparkling for 20 minutes and were too much for Grantham, moving the ball brilliantly and looking athletic and aggressive.

"Then we’ve conceded two goals from set pieces due to naivety and a lack of edge. We’ve thrown away too many leads and given away too many soft goals as a group.

"I don’t think we’ve been found out by many teams in this division technically, tactically or even physically, I just think when you’re a young team and playing against men most weeks, you can get found out a little bit and we have.

"That’s part of the process. There was a remit at the start of the season to have a young team, a certain style, and it’s nice to get a few compliments for the group from the supporters about how we have played.

"There’s two ways you can do things if you’re trying to stay in this league – you can either smash it up to a big number nine and hope for the best, or you can do what we’ve done for the majority of the season and make the pitch big, move the ball and take a few risks.

"We’ve been brave with that, brave with young players – at least two thirds of the group are in their first season of adult football – and it’s mine as a manager too so the club’s been brave, we’ve been brave and I think we should all be very proud of that.”