St Ives boss Ricky Marheineke hailed the club’s groundsman after seeing his team stretch their unbeaten run to six matches last Saturday.

Marheineke admitted Steve Small ‘worked miracles’ to get their ProEdge Westwood Road clash against Daventry Town in Southern League Division One Central on.

“I was sent a picture of the pitch last Thursday and it was under water,” said Marheineke. “I thought we had no chance of the game being on, but Steve did brilliantly and I’m just pleased his hard work was rewarded with a win.”

Ben Seymour-Shove fired the only goal - his 12th of the season - as Town climbed to within four points of the play-off spots.

He was left with a simple second-half tap-in after a fine low delivery from teenager Kieran Fitzgerald, who joined St Ives from Daventry earlier in the season.

The visitors had been denied an opener by the crossbar soon after half-time as a Tom Berwick shot smashed against the frame of the goal, but their threat diminished after they had been reduced to 10 men.

Defender Craig McKay received his marching roders for bringing down substitute Will Muzuimbiri.

Marheineke added: “We were as poor as we have been for a while in the first half.

“We had to defend well to hang in the game and Tim Trebes made one unbelievable save to stop us going behind.

“We were better after the break and one goal always looked like being enough to win the game.

“We are not thinking about the play-offs - the most important thing is that we are now within nine points of safety.

“Getting the 40 points we will need to stay up on the board is all that we are focused on.”

Town are without a fixture on Saturday when they will instead train. Their only remaining game in 2014 is at home to Royston Town on Boxing Day.