Wealdstone manager Dean Brennan insists the National League deserve a huge deal of credit as they’re allowed to continue playing football throughout the second UK lockdown.

Brent & Kilburn Times: Wealdstone manager Dean Brennan looks on (Pic: Jon Taffel)Wealdstone manager Dean Brennan looks on (Pic: Jon Taffel) (Image: Archant)

The Stones were due to be without action on Saturday after crashing out of the FA Cup last month, but have since rearranged their home fixture with Altrincham that was due to be played on a midweek in April.

They will then make the trip to Halifax Town on Tuesday after that fixture was originally postponed due to their opponents having returned positive Covid-19 tests.

“I think you’ve got to give the National League a lot of credit, they’ve done really well to get us funding in all three leagues, and we’ve got it for the next three months which allows us to sustain our business personally,” said Brennan.

“I don’t know about everyone else, of course, but they’ve also done brilliant to create the ‘elite’ tag, which has allowed us to play football.

“If we didn’t have that elite tag, we’d be without games, and it would be really frustrating for everybody, so I have to give them a lot of credit on how they’ve helped the football clubs and allowed us to keep going.

“The league have to give themselves a pat on the back, I know we’ll have lots of tough tests ahead, but it’s important that we’ve been able to keep some form of normality.

“Also got to give BT Sport some credit as they’ve been putting on lots of National League games.”

The Stones have won their last three consecutive National League fixtures and will now look to build on that when they host Altrincham on Saturday at Grosvenor Vale.

“I think our next five games are all those sort of fights to be totally honest,” added Brennan.

“There is a lot of ex-Football League sides in the division, but the next few sides we play are not all ex-League clubs so these are our fights.

“We’ve just got to keep taking it one game at a time and keep enjoying it, we’ve got a good, energetic young side with a lot of pace, we play on the front foot and we’ve set some solid standards so far.

“We need to improve on our defensive performances as we’re a bit too leaky for my liking, but we’re looking forward to it.

“Altrincham had a good result at Dover on the weekend, and we know there is no easy games, so it will be another tough test.”