THE champagne was on ice at Larges Lane this week to celebrate Bracknell Town’s promotion, writes Dave Wright.

However, it’s more a case of when they will achieve it, rather than if.

The Robins’ 1-0 win at Windsor last Friday left them on 89 points with three games to go.

Two points from their final three matches would leave them in an unassailable position, as the most Wantage can achieve is 90 points. Even one should prove sufficient as Town also boast a vastly superior goal difference.

But even three wins could still see them miss out on the Hellenic League title as Thatcham are on 95 points going into their final fixture, at home to Brackley Town Saints on Thursday, and have a much better goal difference.

Following tomorrow's (Tuesday) game away to relegation-threatened Woodley United, Bracknell travel to Lydney on Thursday evening before completing their league programme at home to Tuffley Rovers on Saturday.

On paper, that doesn’t appear to be a particularly tough scheduled, but Town coach Geoff Warner was taking nothing for granted when he spoke to the News after the win at Windsor.

“It could be a hard week for us, as we are up against a couple of decent sides,” he admitted.

Since Warner returned to the club as assistant to player-manager Carl Davies with Steve Nebbett going back as well, the Robins have won every game.

“When we came in we still had 13 (league) games to go and we said then we would try to win all of them and that is what we are still trying to do,” added Warner.

“We believed we had the players capable of winning all those 13, and that is proving the case so far.”

In recent games especially, Bracknell’s defence has been particularly impressive and that was again the case against Windsor.

Warner commented: “The amount of clean sheets we have had in the last 10 games has been a real strong point for us.

“Our goals-against record has been really good.

“The centre-backs (Carl Davies and Joe Gater) have been outstanding, while Ryan Parsons is playing really well at left-back and Leggy (Elliott Legg) played well again against Windsor.”

The back four needed to be at their best, as the Stag Meadow men made things difficult for them.

“They (Windsor) were certainly up for it,” said Warner.

“I think they were disappointed we knocked them out of the (League) cup a few weeks ago and wanted to get their revenge.

“In the first half they they looked the team that was challenging for the title, but we turned it around in the second half.

“We started passing the ball a little bit better, getting the ball to our wide players.

“We did a lot better in the second half and in the end we were worth the win.”