HARVEY SAUNDERS grabbed the limelight when he scored late in Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Bradford Park Avenue, and nobody was more relieved to have avoided being centre of attention than Darlington’s Adam Bartlett.

Quakers’ new goalkeeper admits he had felt pressure to perform having endured a nightmare debut last weekend, his error after a free-kick giving Gainsborough Trinity their first goal of the game.

The 31-year-old had replaced Ed Wilczynski, who had kept clean sheets in Darlington’s two previous games, but the score in Bartlett’s first match was 3-3, individual and collective mistakes proving costly, and the new man admits he was at fault.

“Ed had played and kept a few clean sheets before I came in, so there was a bit of pressure there and then I heaped it on after the way I played on Saturday,” he says.

“After 35 minutes on Saturday I was thinking ‘this can’t be going much better’. We were 1-0 up, I’d come for a couple of high balls, my kicking was okay.

“Before the free-kick I’d decided I was going to come for it. I completely lost the ball in the sun – it’s no excuse, I should have been wearing a cap. At the last second I couldn’t see the ball so I opted to punch. Not great.

“Wednesday was not perfect, but it was better so hopefully I can build on that.

“It was good to get a clean sheet, especially after Saturday when I let the team down on my debut, which is not what you want to do, so there was a bit of pressure on myself.

“The pressure was not just from myself, but from everybody. The manager has put faith in me by bringing me in at such an important stage of the season. I had a few people to prove wrong I suppose, so I was determined to put in a decent performance, although I had some indifferent moments during the game I came through it in the end.”

Bartlett’s stand-out moment on Wednesday was a one-handed to save to push away a powerful shot by Oli Johnson, though the new No. 1 was quick to praise his team-mates.

He said: “I managed to get my top hand to it to turn it over the crossbar, but I had little to do throughout the night and I thought the lads in front of me were brilliant.

“It felt like Bradford had about 15 corners in the second half, but everybody stayed switched on, put their bodies on the line and we defended brilliantly.”

Bartlett will be in the team that plays at top-of-the-table AFC Fylde tomorrow, Quakers travelling on the back of some good results that have lifted them to fifth.

Darlington are unbeaten in their last seven away games, and Bartlett added: “There’s a big six games left to go and we’re full of confidence.

“If we can make those play-offs and get promotion here, which is the aim, we would be in the Conference next season which would be fantastic given where the club has come from.

“Success has been ingrained into the club and the lads are winners. A lot of them have been here for a long time and have been successful together.

“I’ve only been here for a week and I can feel that bond in the dressing room. After Saturday when I had a nightmare, everybody was good with me. I had cost them a couple of points on their debut, but they picked me up.”