MIKE Fowler praised his side’s ‘application’ after Redditch United battled to a narrow win away at Stourbridge.
The Reds ended a run of five games without a win as Liam Loughlan’s second-half goal proved decisive at the War Memorial Athletic Ground.
The result means Redditch sit sixth in the Southern League Premier Central table, one point outside of the play-off places.
And Reds boss Fowler praised his side for maintaining a high level of performance throughout their recent fixtures.
Fowler said: “It was a proper away performance. We’ve deserved more points than we’ve picked up over the last few weeks.
“All week, I’ve been telling the lads to blank out any noise because we’ve played really well [recently].
“If you keep performing like that, you’ll get your points and we showed that [against Stourbridge].
“We were quite brave with out starting shape and went after them a little bit in a different sense to how we normally do.
“We got our reward. We’ll be the worst team they’ve ever seen here, we’re the biggest cheats, I’ve taken pelters from the crowd but it makes it even sweeter.
“It was 90 minutes of two teams going at it and we’ve kept a clean sheet. I’m absolutely delighted with the team’s application.”
Redditch broke the deadlock on 50 minutes when Tyler Bruck cut the ball back to Loughlan who placed a low effort past Charlie Price from 12-yards out.
And Fowler took great pride from his side’s gritty performance in difficult conditions.
Fowler added: “We always show that character and togetherness.
“Forget all the pretty patterns and the pretty football, 11 men standing toe-to-toe and getting each other through it is exactly what I’m proud of.
“The pretty stuff is the icing on the cake. I’m not bothered how we do it. It doesn’t matter, you’ve just got to win games of football.
“I think other teams think we’re soft but we’re not and we’ve shown that.
“I will enjoy this [result] as much as a five-nil win, if not more probably.”
Redditch are next in action against Halesowen Town on Saturday, January 31 with kick-off at 3pm at the Valley Stadium.
