Soham Town Rangers player-manager Robbie Mason has called on his players to stand up and be counted ahead of a vital bottom-of-the-table showdown in the Ryman North Division this weekend.

The Greens are currently stuck in a rut having not won a league match since December – a run of 12 games - but have the perfect opportunity to snap that run on Saturday when they welcome basement boys Great Wakering Rovers to Julius Martin Lane.

Soham were sent to their ninth defeat in 12 games last weekend at AFC Hornchurch last weekend, and boss Mason, who is still without a victory as manager, is urging his players to show their quality on Saturday in what is a must-win game.

“It’s been 12 games now without a win and I don’t like that fact,” he said.

“If we don’t pick up soon then it’s going to be another tough couple of weeks. We need to be brave and be bold and prove our squad is good enough, which it is.

“At Hornchurch the performance was a lot better. We dug in deep but switched off for a split second and that cost us. We need to start games with a good tempo and need to start them in the first minute, not the 45th.

“We were just as good as them but didn’t get the result.”

Mason has endured a baptism of fire as Soham boss, losing all but three of his first 12 games, and has admitted that a host of players following former managers Robbie Nightingale and Dave Theobald out of the club has been detrimental to their league campaign.

“I had a look at the Cambridge City starting 11 last week and seven of them were Soham players at the start of the season,” he said.

“We’ve also had a lot of players out through injury but I don’t want the lads that are here to use that as an excuse for our recent form.

“The lads have been excellent – especially the midfield, and if it wasn’t for them then I’m sure we’d be even lower in the table.

“It’s a massive week for the club but I don’t want to put too much pressure on the players.

“We did that a few weeks ago for the Heybridge Swifts game and we played really badly, so I’m just going to tell the lads to go out there and fight for a positive result.”