ACCRINGTON Stanley boss John Coleman has challenged his players to make their fans proud as they face high-fliers Darlington at the Fraser Eagle Stadium tonight in the first part of a home triple-header.

The Reds take on the Quakers, in the game that was postponed on January 10, before taking on Barnet and then Morecambe in the space of seven days.

Coleman’s side have only won four games at home this term.

But after a great win the last time they played at home against Grimsby, and after an encouraging performance and result at Bradford on Saturday, the Stanley manager is hoping to continue that trend against Darlington – who hammered Luton 5-1 at the weekend.

He said: “We’d still like our home form to be better.

"We’ve lost too many games we should have won at home.

"It would be nice to get back to winning ways certainly for the fans and give them something to be proud of.

“I think we need to win quite a lot of our home games if we’re going to be safe.

"We need to win our home games, not just for our points but to keep the spirits of our home fans up.

“Even though we lost a place after the Bradford game, we probably made some ground on the teams above us and if we can win our game in hand tonight we could climb a couple of places.

“We have to concentrate on winning games wherever we play.

"We’ve shown we can go to Bradford and compete and there’s no reason why we can’t do that everywhere.

“No-one has hammered us this year, I know we lost 5-1 to Lincoln but anyone who saw that game will say we did not deserve that scoreline.

“We do compete in every game and if a little bit of luck goes our way we will win more than lose.”

The Stanley bench resembled a creche on Saturday with all but Ian Dunbavin having come through – or still coming though – the ranks.

But Coleman said the exposure the likes of Chris Turner and Jay Bell are getting will stand them in great stead for the future.

He added: “I think it will help them no end. They will learn by experience, it’s the best way to learn in my opinion – practical is always better than theory.

“Unless you put yourself in a position where your decision-making counts and how you apply your choices it’s difficult to learn and I think the kids have done well.”

And Coleman paid particular tribute to John Miles and Jimmy Ryan who have been exceptional in recent weeks – and he’s hoping that can keep playing at the top of their games for the visit of the Quakers.

“Darlington are a good team and they can hurt people as they showed on Saturday,” he said.

“But every time we’ve played against them, we’ve done well although we haven’t had the correct score for us. But hopefully, we’ll marry the two up and get what we feel we’ve deserved from previous encounters.

“They’ve got experience all over the park so it’ll be difficult for us but we’re playing full of confidence at the moment, no more than John Miles.

“He’s really warmed to the task of being our play-maker and I hope he continues in that vein.

“I think John was disappointed in his first season. I signed him because he was a top player and he never lived up to those heights in my first season.

"I think the fact that Ian Carney’s gone, it’s has given John the mantle of creating things for us and he’s responded to that.

“And Jimmy Ryan’s a smashing lad and he’s got a great attitude towards football.

"He’s a throw-back to the days of old of lads who love the game and love pitting their wits against the opposition.”