Cleator Moor Celtic collected their third win in four matches to climb to 12th in the North West Counties League.
They beat Runcorn Town 3-1 at Inglenorth Park to move four points off the drop zone and six off the play-offs.
It’s been an encouraging spell for new manager Brian Dawson and his assistant Craig Routledge.
“It’s another three points and three wins from the last four, but the pleasing thing for myself and Craig is that you can still see there’s much more to come,” said Dawson.
He went on: “You can see we are starting to gel now and the lads are getting up to the speed of the League. If we can tidy up in possession and be better in our decision-making then our Saturday afternoons will be a little less stressful.
“We could have been out of sight really if we had taken better care of the ball but the lads put in a great shift and we were deserved winners.”
The first half was fairly even but Celtic managed to get themselves in front on 31 minutes with a goal from Luke Ivison.
Runcorn started really well in the second half and were on top when they equalised after 55 minutes through Jack Coop.
The Celtic management tweaked the formation and from that point Celtic dominated the last half an hour.
Ivison scored his second on 67 minutes before Leon Dmytrowski wrapped up the points in stoppage time.
Cumbrian neighbours Holker Old Boys gave unbeaten League leaders Pilkington a massive shock before going down 3-2.
With a quarter of an hour left the Old Boys were leading 2-0 and Pilkington’s 100 per cent start to the season seemed destined to be broken at the eighth attempt.
But on 78 minutes Liam Paton pulled one back and two minutes from the end Chris Lomax levelled.
Even then that would have been an achievement for Holker but in the second minute of time added on Adam Gilchrist grabbed the winner.
Nathan Reid had given Holker a 17th minute lead and Jamie Hodgson made it 2-0 eight minutes into the second half.
