Cobblers boss Wilder relishes a day to remember

It was a Cobblers performance that combined attacking quality with defensive resolve as early goals from Zander Diamond and Marc Richards stunned the Sky Bet League One outfit.

Town ultimately deserved the win but they were made to work mighty hard as City piled forward in frantic search of a late leveller, however for all the home side’s endeavour, they were never able to break down a resilient and hard-working Cobblers defence with Adam Smith rarely troubled in the away goal.

And Wilder was understandably proud of his players afterwards, as well as the magnificent 2,500 travelling supporters who were in fine voice throughout.

“We’re in football for days like this,” said Wilder. “We have the low times but today people were diving in, blocking shots and Adam’s (Smith) not had a great deal to do today but he’s come up with a save when he’s had to.

“When the final whistle goes that’s what it’s all about and when you’re walking over to the supporters - it’s a day to remember in the history of his proud football club.

“I’m proud of the club. We had 2,500 supporters here today and they were outstanding.

“It was hairs on the back of your neck moment when we went over to them at the end.

“We’ve had to be patient and defensively we’ve had to be tough and hard to beat and when we had the ball we had to be positive and in both parts of the game were good from our point of view.

“But the biggest thing is the mentality and attitude of everyone concerned off the pitch during the week and what we can affect during the game on the pitch and we’ve certainly done that today.

“We think we’ve got some really good players at our level and we’ve come here today and gone toe-to-toe in the first half and deserved to be ahead at half-time.

“We knew we’d be pegged back in the second half but the resilience and the character the players showed was absolutely immense.”

Wilder also revealed that club captain Richards picked up a chest infection prior to the game but remained determined to play, adding: “Marc possibly shouldn’t have played because he had a chest infection but he gave us 60 minutes.

“He’s the club captain and that speaks volumes about what the players are like here.”