Halstead Town manager Mark Benterman admits he isn’t totally sold on Friday night football, but he knows exactly what his team have to do when they do return to Thurlow Nunn League division one action tonight.

The Humbugs will host AFC Sudbury Reserves knowing that a three-point haul could be key to their promotion hopes this season and Benterman said his team will be going out for nothing less at Rosemary Lane tonight (kick-off 7.45pm).

“For me, football should be on Saturday afternoons,” he said.

“I still find it strange to have a game on a Friday and then be sitting watching results come in from elsewhere on a Saturday.

“But the players seem to like it as they get to play in front of bigger crowds on Friday evenings and I know it works well for the club in a financial sense with more people coming in.

“We have done alright in front of big crowds recently and we just have to worry about ourselves again tonight rather than thinking about the occasion.

“We must take care of ourselves on the pitch and not worry about how many people are watching us.

“We’ll obviously hope to put on a good show for the crowd, but we know first and foremost what we have to do.

“It’s a massive game for us and however we get the three points, we have to get them.

“We’ll play to whatever style we have to to get over the line.

“That’s the nature of the beast for us now.

“We know we are in the entertainment business but we need to win.

“If that puts pressure on the teams playing on Saturday then great, but we know that if we lose and they win then it becomes that much harder for us.

“So we know what we have to do.

“We have to make sure that we stay in the mix and hope that Ely drop two games.

“That would put it back in our hands, so we have to make sure we take care of our part of it to be ready if they do slip up.”

Ross Elkins is the only injury concern for tonight’s game with an ankle problem.

Following a busy Easter weekend for Halstead and their promotion rivals, that saw Town beat Dereham Town Reserves 3-0 before having Bank Holiday Monday’s trip to Cornard United postponed due to the effects of Storm Katie, the Humbugs are still fourth in the division one table.

They are eight points behind third-placed Ely, but have now played the same number of games and know exactly what will be required to overhaul the Cambridgeshire team.

“No-one would really have wanted to play in that wind that we had on Monday as it is a lottery so we weren’t too worried about seeing the game off,” said Benterman.

“What it has done though is make sure we are all on the same number of games and that does make the job in front of us a bit clearer.

“However, we already knew the job in hand and we can’t do any more than win our own games.

“We have to win our games and hope Ely come unstuck in a couple of theirs.

“If we win all ours and they win all theirs, then they’ll rightly go up, but we have to focus on what we are doing and just win all of ours.”