Great Yarmouth Town may be flying on the promotion trail, but they are determined to avoid another failure at the final hurdle.

Last season’s agonising final day defeat, which left the Bloaters narrowly outside of the promotion picture, is still fresh in the minds.

And despite Town sitting nicely in second place in the Thurlow Nunn First Division, the club are not standing still.

Having seen Connor Deeks head along the coast to National League North Lowestoft Town, they immediately moved to bring in a high quality replacement, signing Payton Swatman from Dereham Town, who play in the Ryman League North.

It was a signal of intent from the Yarmouth management team of Adam Mason and Martyn Sinclair.

“Whilst we were delighted for Connor to get on and get a chance to show his potential, we knew it left a hole in our midfield,” said joint boss Mason.

“We had to act quickly so bringing in Payton Swatman has really pleased us.

“Payton has been a regular with Dereham at Step 4 so we are hopeful he can help us maintain the strength of squad we need to continue to compete at the top of the division.

“If Saturday’s man of the match performance at Debenham is anything to go by, we have pulled off a great signing.

“We could have felt sorry for ourselves having lost a player of Connor’s calibre, but we have had an objective since taking on this job in May so we are not about to do nothing.

“We are far from satisfied with our position and realise that we are a long way from meeting the objective of promotion so despite the addition of Payton we will be focussing on every fixture until the final game of the season.

“The players we have retained from last season will know better than most the pain of final day defeat, having finished fourth and narrowly missing out on promotion at the last time of asking.”

The Bloaters are at home to in-form Haverhill Borough tomorrow and have a special offer for Norwich City fans who, with the Canaries out of action, might be in need of a football fix.

Any season tickets from Carrow Road shown at the ground will entitle another supporter free admission.

Neighbours Gorleston – who lost to Walsham-le-Willows last weekend – are on the road tomorrow with a tough trip to Saffron Walden Town in the Premier Division.