HEYBRIDGE Swifts manager Jody Brown has called for a positive vibe – on the pitch and in the stands – heading into a nerve-jangling final day of the season.

The Scraley Road side are fourth from bottom in Ryman League dDivision nNorth and could be relegated if they lose at home to Phoenix Sports and Waltham Abbey beat Redbridge.

Abbey, third from bottom, also have the advantage of a superior goal difference, following Swifts’ 4-0 defeat at Maldon and Tiptree on Tuesday night.

However, while admitting his players gave a poor account of themselves in the derby, Brown wants them to do themselves proud and get the job done on Saturday.

“We don’t want to be in this situation and it’s hard to turn it into a positive, because we should be safe and we’re not,” said the Swifts boss.

“But at least it’s in our control. It’s in our hands and we haven’t got to look at other teams’ results.

“We’ve just got to turn up and get something from the game and if we do that, we’re safe.

“Then the club, the players and the whole group can reassess and see what the way forward is.

“We have to get it right on Saturday.

“We need to dig out a performance and have to give a good account of our football club – the players who start, the players who come on and all the supporters.

“Everyone needs to be 100 per behind us and it’s an advantage that we’re playing at Scraley Road.

“We need boys who it matters to and who want to be here in the future – not boys who are thinking ‘let’s just get this season done’ because they might not be here next year.

“The club were rock bottom when we took over in mid-October and then we had the budget cut in November.

“We’ve turned it around and now we’ve got it into a position where it’s in our hands.

“We have to be proud of that, but it will feel like a massive failure if we don’t get the job done.

“I’ve never been in this situation before – it might feel like winning the FA Cup. We’ve got to imagine the final whistle and the celebrations if we get the job done, knowing it was a case of mission accomplished.

“It could turn out to be a really great day.”

Brown is looking forward to reassembling his squad at tonight’s training session.

And he believes the players’ get-together could be crucial, in terms of building the right mind-set and repairing confidence.

“All our attention now goes into tonight’s session, to try and change the atmosphere, because everyone was pretty dejected on Tuesday night,” he said.

“We have to have the right level of intensity in it and we’ve got some patching up to do, in terms of confidence.

“We’ve got to remind the players how well they’ve been doing and the teams they’ve beaten and the performances they’ve put in.

“At the moment, confidence has been affected which is only natural when you’ve been battered.

“But I need players who are going to roll their sleeves up and get the job done.

“We want to accomplish our mission and I have to pick a team of players that I can trust – not necessarily the best footballers but a group that aren’t going to do the things we did on Tuesday.”

Reflecting on Tuesday's defeat, Brown admitted his side gave themselves a huge mountain to climb after conceding twice in 18 minutes.

“Maldon were really good but we were well below-par. We under-performed and aren’t as bad as that," he said.

“We looked a level below them and I can’t dress it up any other way.

"If you start a game as badly as we did, against a very good team, it's very hard to come back.

“We looked dejected after conceding those first two goals and it took a while to bounce back.

"We got a little foot-hold in the game – only for a few minutes – where you thought that if we could nick one, we might be back in the game.

“But after a horrific error at the back, we found ourselves 3-0 down," he added.

“That was a killer and from that point on, it was always going to be difficult to get back in the match."