McAughtrie on the mend for Rangers

Stafford Rangers defender Craig McAughtrie is on the mend and looking to come straight back into the fold after missing the weekend game with a worrying injury.

The big centre-half missed the 2-0 defeat at Gloucester, which ironically secured the club's safety in the Blue Square North for next season due to Harrogate losing, after being struck down with a mystery illness that left him dazed and groggy.

But McAughtrie appears to be over the worst of it and returned to work yesterday - he is a policeman based in Burton - ahead of Saturday's final home game against Brian Little's Gainsborough Trinity.

The 29-year-old will be assessed at Thursday night's Marston Road training session, but is hopeful of being fit.

He said: "I am sure I will be fine for Saturday, I will be training again this week and if there's no reaction I will be ready for the weekend. I should still be pretty match fit, I have played a lot of football over the last couple of months and only missed one game."

McAughtrie was signed off work, his first ill leave in four-and-a-half years, after initially feeling unwell early last week but only ruled himself out of the game completely on the Friday afternoon.

He said: "It was very strange, like a sense of unbalance and it was coming on every couple of minutes. It kept making me jump and I felt like I was going to fall over. I wondered if I had been knocked on the head.

"Obviously something wasn't right, so I went to the doctor and he couldn't put his finger on it either. It started in the early hours of last Tuesday morning and was still happening on Thursday night, so on Friday I had to call the manager and tell him I was struggling.

"I was gutted but there was no way I could have played."