Hoyle's target for City

And, judging by this performance against the league leaders on Tuesday night, they could achieve that.

It looks certain that Mick Hoyle will be in charge at least for Saturday's match away at Worksop but beyond that it looks uncertain.

Officials at the club will be interviewing seven candidates for the job today (Thursday) and tomorrow and expect to make an appointment by the end of next week - but Hoyle must fancy chances after his good start.

Meanwhile he's keeping his feet on the ground. After Tuesday's match he said: "I'm happy with the way things have gone so far...I told the members of the board on Friday after we signed two defenders and a striker that I would sleep easy and I wouldn't change anything about Saturday except for the result... we had a plan tonight and we played five men at the back but tried to be more creative in the second half. It worked well and we could have won. I though Jamie Udall was outstanding. We had an offer for £10,000 for Jamie from Bamber Bridge this season, he looked worth a lot more than that on this performance." Officials from Bamber were at the match to check out their next opponents - Altrincham.

Udall was definitely man of the match but in fact all the team could claim credit as they more than held their own in a tight game.

City's move of the match, and possibly the year, came deep in the second half. It was a flowing four man one-touch move, which cut through the centre of the Altrincham defence, and ended with new on-loan striker hitting a hard shot just tipped wide by keeper Stuart Coburn.

That followed a good chance which Stuart Parkinson screwed wide at the end of the first half and a good run and shot from sub Paul Crompton on 74 minutes.

As Hoyle said: "Come the end of the match and it was the Altrincham bench screaming for the final whistle." Lancaster City 0 Altrincham 0

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