NATHAN Gambling believes that Fairford are still ‘right in the running’ in the Hellenic League Division One West title race.

The Reds’ 3-0 win at Tuffley on Saturday saw them leap above their rivals into fifth in the standings, seven points behind league leaders Tytherington.

And striker Gambling, who bagged a brace at the weekend, is confident that his side can finish in top spot.

“It’s still early days and if we keep playing how we are and working for each other then I think we can do well against anyone,” he said.

“We are right in the running, people won’t be writing us off yet.

“It was a decent win on Saturday considering the conditions weren’t great.

“In the first half their keeper was kicking it and the ball was going straight back to him.

“We had to deal with it in the second half but we were smart about it.

“I should have had another goal but I was flagged offside although I don’t know what the lino was doing, but it’s nice to be scoring again.

“We deserved to win by a long way, they didn’t look like scoring even in the second half. They could have been there all day.”

Gambling had the first opening of the game but he was judged offside when well-placed.

Richie Carter powered Fairford in front from an Adam Smith free kick with 21 minutes on the clock.

Gambling got his name on the scoresheet soon after when he finished off a one-on-one opportunity.

And the frontman netted the final goal of the game in the closing stages of the first half after good work from Callum Parsons.

Having gone in 3-0 at the break, Fairford defended well in the second period as they fought against the wind.

There was even time for a debut from the bench for Mark Norridge, a recent signing from Carterton.

Purton’s title hopes suffered a blow at the weekend as they were beaten by the odd goal in five at league leaders Tytherington.

Ash Gooch gave the visitors the lead early on but Jack Smyth equalised and a penalty from Stuart Nelson made it 2-1 to the Rocks.

Ryan Child levelled on the half hour mark but 15 minutes after the break, Joe White grabbed all three points for Tytherington.

Elsewhere in the division, New College’s game at Shortwood reserves was postponed.

Shortwood’s first team take on League One Port Vale in the FA Cup first round proper a week today and due to work being carried out at Meadowbank, the reserves were unable to host the students.

College boss Rob Hopkins explained: “Shortwood are having to do loads of work for the FA Cup game that the first team are playing.

“They have got to build camera gantries, temporary stands and all the stuff for BT Sport and they are doing so much work that they said they could not host the game on Saturday.

“We should have played Malmesbury last Saturday but their pitch was being used so this is a double blow.

“We’re going to try and organise a friendly game this week because while our under 18s have got loads of games, the Hellenic lads need to get their legs going again.”