Horsham boss John Maggs insists his side will stay up after they beat Wembley at the weekend.

The former Crawley manager and chairman has ambitions of building the Ryman League division two strugglers into a force in Sussex and this win against mid-table Wembley showed they have the tools to do the job.

Hornets produced a champagne performance of attractive, flowing and attacking football and afterwards Maggs had good reason to raise a toast to the future.

He said: "I'm convinced we won't get relegated. The players have no doubt we will stay up too. We want to get through this season, then build in the summer and take the club forward.

"Full credit must be given to the boys for the performance against Wembley. We've been playing some great stuff in recent weeks, but not getting the breaks. I've told the players that a team was going to get a hammering one of these days and Wembley ended up on the receiving end."

Maggs has been in football a long time and his cool head on experienced shoulders should guide the club through this crisis. The Hornets had lost three of their previous four matches prior to Saturday.

The poor run coincided with prolific marksman Gavin Geddes suffering a goal drought, which had seen him fail to find the net in the previous five matches. Geddes, signed from Wick a couple of months ago, added a late fourth goal to seal a brilliant result in front of a crowd of 375, Horsham's highest of the season.

The club invited local children to the match for free entry and the crowd was swelled by 168 of them. Geddes said: "It was beginning to get on my nerves., but the goal drought is over now and hopefully I can start to find the net on a more regular basis. It's been a good season for me and had scored 25 goals up until my lean spell.

"We'll steer clear of danger now. How we lost three matches out of the last four is beyond belief. We've dominated, but not put our chances away."

It was easy to see where the Hornets have been going wrong in recent weeks on the evidence of their first-half performance. They completely controlled the opening spell and ought to have been three goals to the good at the interval.

Geddes and strike partner Steve Flain both missed sitters in the opening half-an-hour, before Gary Charman barged through on the left edge of the box to rifle a low shot past Wembley goalkeeper Keita Karamoko.

Horsham were awesome in the second half and ripped their opponents to shreds. Within five minutes of the restart, Dave Odongo doubled their tally with a powerful 20-yard effort after Wembley had failed to clear a Nigel Brake cross.

Although the visitors pulled one back a few moments later from the spot through Rene Monthem, there was no thwarting the attacking flow of football from Horsham.

Geddes crossed from the left for Matt Smart to add a third 20 minutes from time and Geddes himself was finally rewarded for a busy display with the fourth five minutes later.

Hornets chairman Frank King paid tribute to Maggs for the way he has turned the club's fortunes around. He said: "We're delighted to have him here. I've know John for many years and we've become good friends. When he left Crawley, we were keen to get him here and I think he'll be the man to get us into division one.

"We're an ambitious club and want to progress up the ladder. But we're going to do it in stages. Our first aim is obviously to get out of relegation trouble and then it's to build a side to take us into division one. The ground sale of Queen Street is still very much in our minds and when we eventually find a site to build our new ground it could be very exciting times for the club."

Maggs admits he is happy to have swapped his Crawley chairman's suit for the Horsham manager's tracksuit. He said: "I've always considered management to be my strongest asset. My record is pleasing and I'm good at finding players and then selling them on. I must've sold around £150,000 worth of talent at Crawley, which by non-league standards is a big bonus.

"A lot of people were suspicious when I came over here and wondered how long it would be until I'd go back to Crawley. I'm not going back and wish, if the directors at Horsham don't mind, to stay here for the rest of my management days."

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