Phase one of Canterbury’s ‘great escape’ from NOW: Pensions, Premier Division relegation is complete but skipper Tom Richford wasted no time turning his attention to play-off success at the Olympic Park.

The city club live to fight another day after a last-day victory ensured they would avoid automatic relegation and now go into a play-off for survival.

After one win in their opening 13 games, the city club won four of their last five, culminating in Sunday’s 2-1 victory at Southgate, which was enough to ensure the city club finished second-bottom and condemned the hosts to relegation to the second tier.

Canterbury – who finished just a point away from complete safety – won with goals coming either side of half-time from Wei Adams and Francisco Montoya before Darren Cheesman set up a tense finale 17 minutes from time.

Richford said: “It was a tight affair, we probably should have scored more. We managed to score two but made it more difficult than it needed to be.”

The city club now face a play-off series against Bowdon, Team Bath and Kent rivals Holcombe – winners of the Conference North, West and East. The first round-robin fixture will be at Cannock on Sunday, March 29, with the final two fixtures at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London on April 11 and 12.

The top two in the four-team mini-league will play Premier Division hockey next season.

Richford added: “I have believed the whole way through that we were good enough to do it, it was just a matter of time until things clicked and we turned the performances into a win.

“As a season we have fallen short, we should have made life a lot easier for ourselves but you get what you deserve over the course of a season.

“We were happy to have avoided automatic relegation but there was also disappointment when you see we were only a point away from safety and you look back at the season and think of all the opportunities we had to get that point.”

Canterbury have arranged a friendly against Wimbledon on Saturday to prepare them for the first of three play-off games.

Richford added: “Six points from the three games is enough to be safe and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get them.

“Even though other people might not, we see ourselves as favourites. I’m sure there will be nerves but as players you want to play in the biggest games.”