Having failed to claim a point in November or December, Margate were hoping for a change of fortune on New Year’s Day.

It was not to be as a visit to in-form Welling United saw them crash to a 5-1 defeat and Nikki Bull was especially disappointed for the travelling supporters but has promised them that he will not walk out and leave them in the lurch.

He stated “The main thing for those guys that stood in the rain behind the goal today, they were brilliant, is that they have a football club. I’m going to stay with it. I don’t quit. All the time you’re standing on the sideline and you’re losing every week and you’re getting abuse and you’re getting criticism, it’s a tough, tough lonely place. On the flipside I’m getting valuable life skills and experience that you can’t pay for.

“When people say to me why are you still here, I know how frail the football club is and people might look at it and say ten defeats in a row and say any manager could do better but you do still need that little bit of stability to keep the club moving forward. I’m only here for them and I’ll never outstay my welcome. If the fans turned on me and they wanted a change I would go but at this moment in time I feel that the core of the supporters know the troubles there’s been.

“With the best will in the world, this is not my squad. I’m having to literally recruit from a small pool of players. League clubs don’t want to loan to you, even though I’ve got contacts at league clubs, people that I know. They don’t want to loan. They look at results. Most league clubs want to loan to the Conference. If you do get clubs that will loan you players, the agent or the player themselves look at the situation and they don’t want to come.

“We haven’t got the money to get National League players. We don’t have the money to get Conference South players. We have to rely on getting non contract boys from a league, two, three leagues below that we feel have potential but the flipside is that they come into an environment that’s not winning and those players that should be drip fed into the environment are having to start games and you put four or five in together that aren’t up to the fitness levels that’s where your problems start mounting up.”

As a result, he has to chop and change constantly and there is no consistency. He stated “You look at all the football clubs that are successful, you look at Maidenhead this year, they’re running away with it. They’ve had two or three years. Alan’s built a squad there, the core of that squad has stayed together and every year he’s added one or two and now they’re reaping the rewards.

“Hampton, the promoted teams this season. They’ve got that nucleus of players and you can’t buy that, no matter how much money you’ve got.”

Even scoring at Welling failed to give him any joy. He said “I think the goal that we scored before half time was totally against the run of play. I think it was the only shot we had on target so that covered a multitude of sins at half time but we came out and lost the second half 2-0 as well so another disappointing day for the football club”

During the week leading up to the game, first team coach Paul Barnes left the club and it seems unlikely that he will be replaced. He confirmed “I don’t think that the money’s there to be honest. I’ve got a lot of time for Barnsey, he’s an honest lad that worked extremely hard. When a member of staff comes to you and says they’re not enjoying it, they can’t see a structure for them to work within with the turnover of players, I get it. There was no real case for me to put forward because it is what it is. I’m honest and I don’t lie to people so he’s gone and we’ll make the best of the situation.”

Despite all the setbacks, Bull has not given up hope. They are six points off safety and still have eighteen games to play. Next week they host Bishop’s Stortford, the only team below them. If they can win that, it will give them some hope but anything less will make avoiding relegation very difficult.