Coach Lee Howells calls for terrace support as Bath City bid to stop rot at home to Chelmsford

Bath City first-team coach Lee Howells has urged supporters to get behind his side in the face of two potentially perilous home games this week.

Promotion-chasing Chelmsford City visit Mayday Trust Park on Saturday (3pm) before Bath host Blue Square South leaders Welling United on Tuesday (7.45pm).

Despite entering this weekend’s game on the back of three defeats – all on the road – Howells insists there is no reason why his side cannot get back to winning ways this weekend.

“The supporters have got to get behind us because we all want the same thing,” said Howells. “The fans, the players, myself and the club, we all want us to win football matches.

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“Having a crowd that gets behind us will go a long way in helping us to do that.

“The majority of the fans are as good as gold but there are a few that like to grumble and moan right from the first whistle.

“I know last week was a difficult week and it’s very disappointing to lose three games in a row but we are not getting down.

“We’ve got two tough games but they are at home, so we haven’t got anything to fear.

“We’ve always done well against Welling and had a lot of good results against them in the past. On their day, anyone can beat anyone else in this league.

“You look at the sides at the top and bottom and there isn’t really anything to choose between them.

“Maybe the only real difference with the top five sides has been consistency. We haven’t had that but it’s where we need to get to.

“We’d picked up a few good results recently and pulled ourselves out of trouble but we’ve fallen back into it a bit now.

“A couple of good results in these two games will help us pull to away again and I know we are capable of getting them.”

City will come face-to-face with former player Kurtis Guthrie on Tuesday. The striker netted six goals in 12 City games at the start of the season but moved to Welling in October.

“Kurtis did well for us but at that time we had Sean [Canham] coming back in,” said Howells. “But he’s done very well at Welling and I’ve kept up with what he’s been doing.

“He always had the makings of a very, very good player but he just needed somewhere where he could settle and allow himself to play as well as he could.”

Having fielded a depleted squad in the weekend defeat at AFC Hornchurch, Howells is hopeful of welcoming back several players for the visit of Chelmsford.

Illness meant Mark Preece was an unused substitute and injury prevented Chris Allen and Elliott Chamberlain from travelling.

All three should be available but Joe Burnell is still out having had his appendix removed two weeks ago.