Lancaster City 2 Eastwood Town 2 CITY'S fans will be hoping that they can put their calculators away on Saturday evening and start the promotion celebrations at last. The Blues travel to fourth-place Curzon Ashton, a side now out of the promotion hunt after their 3-1 defeat at the hands of Whitley Bay on Tuesday night, knowing that three points could mean guaranteed promotion. The battle for the championship looks set to run for at least another week but with two promotion places up for grabs, City are still nine points clear of Alfreton Town in third.

A win on Saturday would take City on to 80 points. Alfreton, with four left to play starting at home to Netherfield tonight (Wednesday), can only reach 80 points if they win all their remaining fixtures They also have the problem of an inferior goal difference to overcome.

All that means a win for the Blues on Saturday should see the club promoted for the first time in its history, although boss Alan Tinsley isn't counting his chickens.

He told the Citizen: "It could depend on the attitude of the Curzon players but they can still do a bit of damage. It's a hard one to predict but a lot could hang on Alfreton's result tonight.

"It just needs finishing off now. We've done the hard work and we should be going into every game expecting to win but people do get nervous. It will be a shame not to finish as champions now having come this far."

Those nerves were obvious in last Saturday's game at Giant Axe which saw City inch closer to promotion in a tense 2-2 draw at home to Eastwood Town.

Eastwood stunned City by taking the lead after just two minutes when Kris Hoy nipped in between Gary Dullaghan and Mark Thornley and lifted the ball into the net.

The equaliser came on 27 minutes thanks to the goal-scoring skills of John Coleman. He stepped up to take a free-kick on the edge of the Eastwood penalty area and curled the dead ball perfectly through the wall and into the corner.

But the visitors were back in front six minutes before the interval when the normally solid City defence was breached again, Hoy latching on to a long through ball and slotting home his second.

The second period was a tale of two Lancaster penalties. The first, awarded for hand ball minutes after the restart, was taken by top scorer Stuart Diggle. His spot kick was blocked by Parkin in the Eastwood goal and cleared to safety.

In the 63rd minute City got another bite of the cherry for a foul on Diggle. This time hot-shot Coleman placed the ball on the spot and blasted it past the 'keeper to level the scores. TEAM: Thornley, Curwen, Stimpson, Byron, Dullaghan, Shirley, Trainor, Flannery, Diggle, Coleman, Borrowdale. SUBS: Gelling, Hartley, Sharples.

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