SAM Collier is adamant he will fight on to keep Shrivenham in the Premier Division after suffering a 7-1 hammering at home to Holyport.

That result saw Shrivenham’s goal breached for the 13th time this week following Tuesday’s 6-1 reverse at Reading Town.

Second-from-bottom Shrivvy are now six points adrift of Newbury immediately above them and desperately need to turn around their form if they are to avoid relegation.

Although the situation looks bleak, Collier will not be walking away from his responsibilities at Barrington Park.

“I won’t be giving up. I will keep going until the end,” said Collier, who led his team to a respectable mid-table finish last season.

“The committee have been fantastic and have given me lots of support. We’re all pulling together to try to turn our fortunes around.

“We’ve just got to look at it as a 13-game season now and have got to keep on fighting for every point we can get.

“Of course when you’re the man in charge results like this are tough to take and I am still relatively new to all this.

“Last year we were winning lots of games and everything was rosy. It’s not been easy this year but you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth. I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me.”

Shrivenham’s cause was not helped by a severely depleted squad on Saturday as Collier had to call up six reserve team players to face Holyport.

The hosts’ inexperience told as they fell behind inside 45 seconds and were 3-0 in arrears before Charlie Basoline was able to reduce the deficit.

Holyport were soon back on the front foot and got one more goal before the break and they then went on to find the net three times without reply in the second half.

Collier said: “We had eight first-team lads unavailable, which obviously makes life very difficult. There were a lot of senior lads missing and I think that showed against a pretty decent side.

“I think Holyport had seven good goal scoring chances on the day and scored them all.

“We were up against it right from the start and we’ve just got to write yesterday off. We’ve just got to pick ourselves up and get on with it.”

Meanwhile, Purton and Fairford Town were both knocked out of the Bluefin Sports Challenge Cup.

Purton were beaten 2-0 on their trip to Easington Sports, while Fairford lost 3-2 at home to Abingdon United.