HE may have suffered the soaking in the process but John Fisher was at least left with a warm feeling inside as his Highworth Town team came from behind to accomplish one eighth of their end-of-season mission.

On Saturday afternoon, Highworth trailed 2-1 at Longlevens but after weather conditions worsened, they roared back to claim a 3-2 victory, with Josh McGrory grabbing the match-winner.

With the Hellenic League Premier Division now a bridge too far for his troops, Fisher, who is due to step down as Worthians manager at the end of the season, has challenged his side to remain unbeaten for the remainder of their league assignments, and standing in the wind and rain was worth it for the Elms boss at Longlevens.

“I stood on the other side of the ground in the first half but when I got into the dugout in the second half, there was so much rain coming at us and I thought that maybe it’s a good idea that I’m packing this in at the end of the season,” said Highworth boss Fisher.

“It was so bad that I think the referee could have called it off. I know it sounds daft but the weather actually helped us.

“We like to get the ball down and play between the second third and the final third, and in the first half, the pitch was dry and it was harder to do that but as soon as it started raining, the ball was slipping about nicely.

“If the weather hadn’t changed, we might not have come back from 2-1 down.

“Let’s face it – we’ve got nothing to play for now, so you have to set targets when that happens.

“We said to the players that we had eight games left and we wanted to try and stay unbeaten through all of them.

“We got a good three points on Saturday and it was good to see.”

TJ Bohane put Highworth ahead from the penalty spot before Longlevens wrestled back control courtesy of goals from Jonty Welch and Bradley Vanstone.

But Tony Joyce struck to restore parity before McGrory popped up with the winner.

The Worthians go looking for another victory when they host bottom-of-the-table Wokingham & Emmbrook on Easter Monday (kick-off 3pm) but could be without Callum Parsons, Sam Wadieh and Levi Cox, who are all suffering with injuries.

Fisher added: “No disrespect to Wokingham but they’ve only got nine points all season, so hopefully we can get ourselves another three points.”

Elsewhere, Royal Wootton Bassett Town’s struggles continued as their winless run was stretched to nine matches as a result of their 2-0 loss at home to Ascot United on Saturday.

Tristram Dennis and Jamie West netted for the hosts as Paul Braithwaite’s men were dispatched.

Bassett travel to Bracknell Town for their penultimate game of the season on Monday (kick-off 3pm).