Peterhead midfielder Jamie Stevenson has vowed not to let his club’s season end on Saturday.
One win in their last 14 matches has left the Blue Toon bottom of League 1 with one last chance to try to avoid relegation to League 2.
The play-offs represent Peterhead’s best chance of survival now but Jim McInally’s side must overcome a one-point deficit and an inferior goal difference to catch ninth-placed Stenhousemuir.
The scene is set for a tense finale on Saturday with the Blue Toon hosting Alloa, who will finish as runners-up in League 1, while Stenny host play-off challengers Brechin City.
Stevenson said: “It’s a cup final for us now. We need to win and hope Brechin can do us a turn at Stenhousemuir.
“Alloa have the play-offs to look forward to and I don’t know what team they will play as their focus will be on the games to come after Saturday.
“We can’t wait and hope for them to field a weakened team though. We are preparing as if we’re facing their strongest side and whatever happens on Saturday we have to extend the season one way or another.
“We have to win.”
Stevenson is at a loss to explain how he and his team-mates find themselves adrift going into the final day of the season.
Nine wins in 35 matches and 16 defeats give a strong indication, but the Blue Toon midfielder, who began his career with Alloa before a much-celebrated move to Spain with Majorca, believes the time for analysing what went wrong and ensuring there is no repeat will be at the end of the campaign.
He added: “How we got ourselves into this position I’ll never know.
” People say we haven’t scored enough goals and we’ve conceded too many, but it’s not as simple as that.
“We’ve certainly not played anywhere near what we are capable of and we only have ourselves to blame for finding ourselves in this position.
“But there is no point in dwelling on what’s gone wrong now. We have a game to win and our focus is on making sure we do that.
“Hopefully it will be enough to take us into the play-offs and give us another chance at staying in this league.
“The club is doing its part by reducing admission to £5 and letting under-12s in for free and hopefully we can get a big crowd behind us to roar us on.”
