High-flying Falcons look to return to winning ways in Division Two of the Northern Senior League on Saturday.

The promotion-chasing club slipped to a 3-2 defeat at mid-table Kings Stanley at the weekend, a defeat that knocked them off the top of the table.

It allowed new leaders Bibury and Tewkesbury Town – 2-1 winners against Harrow Hill and Barwood United respectively – to go past them as the race for a place in the top three, and with it promotion, hots up.

Not that Falcons will find it easy on Saturday because they travel to Tredworth Tigers, another club in the promotion mix, who although down in fifth have games in hand on all the teams above them.

Fourth-placed Staunton & Corse and sixth-placed Cheltenham Civil Service Reserves are also in the shake-up and Falcons manager Lawrence Martin said with some understatement: “It’s exciting.”

Martin, 33, is in his second season as manager of the club and is hoping to go one better than last time out when the club finished fourth, having been in the promotion places for much of the campaign.

“We just fell away at the end,” Martin said. “We had a lot of new players at the start of last season but it was still the highest finish in Falcons’ history.”

Martin, who managed Coopers Edge in the Gloucester Sunday League and Pittville United in the Cheltenham League before taking over at Falcons, wants to go one better this time around and despite the loss to Kings Stanley he is in confident mood.

“We know it will be difficult against Tredworth but we’ve been playing well,” he said. “We had nine players missing against Kings Stanley. We were 3-0 down at half-time but nearly got back into it.”

So, how does Martin like his team to play?

“We like to play out from the back but we play attacking football,” he said. “We don’t play long ball, we play good football. We work hard on the training pitch, we’re positive, we play a high line and a high press.”

And what would it mean to the club, who play their home games at The Beeches in Charlton Kings, to win promotion?

“It would be awesome,” said Lawrence. “We’re probably the smallest club in the league. We’re looking for a new ground, we need to grow. The aim is to get into the County League.”