Lancaster 1 Leigh RMI 2 LANCASTER City are safe from relegation - despite this defeat on Saturday.

Chorley were beaten on Monday night so City can fight another day.

And new manager Tony Hesketh is already looking for new players for next season's campaign.

Said Mr Hesketh: "I've already spoken to players but obviously they weren't prepared to commit until they were sure we would be in this division. We'll be targeting a couple of strikers and we want to improve the spine of the team.

"In our hearts we knew we were safe really, but I still breathed a sigh of relief when Chorley were beaten. Now we'll be going all out to end on a high note in our home game against Hyde. We certainly want to improve the performance this week was was not good."

Hesketh's opinion of the game from a city point of view was correct - this was a bad performance.

But, once again he could have pointed to the injury list if he had wanted to make excuses. Mark Cheal, Jez Baldwin, Jimmy Graham, Dean Martin and Jay Flannery

were all out through injury and suspension.

It was always going to be an uphill struggle but when City went one

down early it looked like it could be a rout. City equalised just before half time and as the end of the match drew near it looked like they could force a draw.

Steve Tobin had other ideas and when he was left in acres of space way

out from goal he hit the target from 40yds out to steal all three points for Leigh.

The surprise of the day was the return of 'keeper Mark Thornley. There

were fears that he would be out for the rest of his season when he went

down heavily on his shoulder on Bank Holiday Monday but he seems to have

recovered.

As always, his presence in goal was crucial but despite some crucial saves he couldn't prevent Leigh's opening goal. Eric Rostron's corner was flicked on by Keith Evans to Dave Ridings who nodded it past Thornley.

City equalised quarter of an hour later when Stuart Gelling's corner was connected to by a thunderous header from John Kennedy which had no trouble finding the top corner of the net.

City defended better in the second half and a draw was on the cards. But with just over ten minutes left, Steve Tobin picked the ball up and shot from 40 yards out to score a goal that even had a few City fans applauding.

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