Ian Culverhouse says a fellow National League manager pointed him back in the right direction after he 'lost his way' at King's Lynn Town earlier this season.

The Linnets boss has had to steer his team through rough waters this season as they got their first taste of a higher league and then faced huge player cuts because of financial problems at The Walks.

Culverhouse has seen old faces go or be placed on furlough, and new players come in, mostly for free, but has refused to budge from his footballing philosophies. But admits he lost his way midway through the season.

"It's been the longest season ever," he said. "It has always been one step forwards two steps back here. Even at the start of the season we lost our two centre-forwards (Adam Marriott and Michael Gash) through injury and once you miss a pre-season then it is so, so hard to get that back in your legs again. Then we had players leaving at certain times.

"And I lost my way as well halfway through the season where I got a little bit clouded in what I wanted to do and to be fair, I haven't made it public before, but I had a text from a certain manager in the league and he said 'don't lose your way, when you come up against us previously it was so hard to figure out what to do'. He said 'don't get clouded just because you felt you have to change your style - keep to your style'.

"And I thanked him a lot for that because that just put me back into place. I spoke to the players about it and they were in agreement, they wanted the identity to stay, I was a little bit muddled.

"It has been a great season for me because I have made mistakes, massive mistakes, in the way I was going and to come back on line again and restructure it has been a massive learning curve for all of us, it really has, and it has been a really tough time.

"But we have got another shot at it and we certainly won't make the same mistakes gain."

The Linnets are back in action on Saturday lunchtime, with a trip to promotion hopefuls FC Halifax Town.