Turton captain Andy Pendlebury believes his team will fly up the West Lancashire League Premier Division after recovering from a points deduction.

Last week’s 2-1 victory at Vickerstown lifted the Thomasson Fold side above Freckleton on goal difference.

Add to their nine-point tally the nine points they had deducted for fielding an ineligible player earlier in the season and they would be comfortably placed in mid table.

An illustration of the false position they find themselves in is that they are the only team outside the top five who have a positive goal difference.

“Being docked nine points was obviously a kick in the teeth,” said Pendlebury. “But that’s beyond our control and we just have to put it behind us and get on with it.

“The committee went to see the FA to appeal against it. But it stood. We have to get those points back and get up the league. Then next season we’ll see if we can keep the team together and keep improving.

“The immediate aim is to keep winning in the league and try to win the League Cup and the Hospital Cup.

“A few things have not gone our way this season with losing games we should have won and having a few refereeing decisions going against us.

“It was a great relief to get off the bottom and if we continue to play like we played last week we’ll zoom up the table.

“We’ve been playing some really good football and we have a lot of good players who could play at a higher level.

“The fact they choose to stay with us is testament to the quality of the club we’ve got here.

“We could have won by six or seven goals last week and that’s been one of our problems. We’ve more or less played everyone off the park this season but we’ve not been putting the ball in the net as often as we should.

“We’re definitely in a false position. With the quality of the players we’ve got and the football we’ve been playing we could have been challenging for the title.

“A couple of weeks ago we played Fulwood who are second and who we’re playing on Saturday in the cup, and we played them off the park even though we only had 10 men for 85 minutes.

“There’ll be a bit of edge to Saturday’s game because we thought two of their players should have been sent off for punching our players. The linesman even drew the referee’s attention to it on both occasions.”

Centre half Pendlebury, who is the old head of the side at 37, began his career with Turton at 17 and played for several seasons before playing semi-pro at Salford City, Atherton LR and Atherton Colls.

He returned to Thomasson Fold a year ago and believes he still has another two seasons in him at this level.

And he believes the high number of Boltonians in the side is good for the character of the team.

“Apart from one player everyone in the team is from Bolton,” said the Sharples man.

“We are good mates off the field and that shows through in the team spirit we have on the field.

“There’s a lot to be positive about at the club at the moment. We have a lot of confidence back in the team and we have the players and the mentality to win every game. We believe that we can beat everyone.

“We’re looking to get a new ground at Belmont, although how many seasons it will take we don’t know.

“We’ve got a solid and settled back four and a 4-5-1 system with Dave Hanlon and Mark Ward bombing up the wings to make it three up front when we attack.

“One of our players, central midfielder Jimmy Marsden, is having trials with Wrexham and our left back, Matty Eckersley, should be playing at a higher level, as should one or two other players.

“Our manager, Neil Hart, has good connections and his training is second to none. I’ve been at a few semi-professional clubs and it’s definitely the best I’ve seen.”

All matches on pitches run by Bolton Council have been postponed this weekend due to the weather.