Dan’s man to fire fight for survival

DAN KEMP insists that he would sooner be helping Hartlepool’s survival scrap than seeing out the season in mid-table mediocrity.

The midfielder handed Pools’ League Two relegation fight a massive boost with a heroic hat-trick in Friday’s 4-1 win at Grimsby.

That took his haul to nine goals in 12 appearances since his January loan switch from MK Dons.

And he will be aiming to add to that tally as Jon Askey’s second-bottom side target a third successive win when promotion-chasing Stevenage visit today.

Kemp (inset) said: “I said it when I joined, and people probably thought it was a bit strange for me to say, but I was excited coming in and I still have that excitement.

“It sounds strange but as a footballer you want these moments where you’re either at the top or the bottom at some stage of the season.

“If you’re mid-table and you’ve got nothing to play for, it’s not as fun. It’s just a game.

“But when you’ve got something to play for and something to fight for, it’s really exciting.

“We’ve got to keep going to stay up.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, we’ve just got to attack each game we go into and be on the front foot and take it to teams... because what have we got to lose?

“We’ve got to fight to stay in the division and we’re going to keep fighting right to the end, you can guarantee that.”

Stevenage’s push for an automatic promotion spot has faltered recently.

And they dropped out of the top three after they drew with Colchester on Friday, extending their winless run to four games.

Steve Evans’ side have been hit by injuries and the Scot (inset) said: “I’ve never had a season where we’re getting things thrown against us like we are.

“It’s been hard but we’ll freshen it up as best we can and go to Hartlepool and we’ll see if we can come back still competing for the top three.”