ACCRINGTON Stanley boss John Coleman is on a mission to put the sparkle back into the Crown Ground.

The club’s fans - the Stanley Ultras - were renowned among football for their vibrant flags and vocal backing.

But Coleman admitted the volume was lower than usual in Tuesday night’s first home game of 2015, which ended in a late 1-0 defeat to Bury.

He is determined to turn it up this afternoon, when the Reds bid to arrest a run of three straight defeats with the visit of Northampton Town.

“It was tantamount to being like an away game the other night because they had a lot of fans concentrated in one area and they made a lot of noise,” said Coleman.

“We need to get the spark back in our fans. We need to get the crowd buzzing, we need to get them singing and making noise.

“I’ve always said it’s a two-way process. We can’t just expect them to do that overnight and just turn up and be like that, the only way we can get them back like that is to inspire with performances.

“You’ll get the better performances if you get the more vocal support, and in order to do that we’ve got to play better.

“It’s a bit of chicken and egg situation. We’ve got to make the first move, we’ve got to be the ones who inspire the crowd and once the crowd get behind us there’s no better crowd in the league. I’ve seen it so many times, we have got the best supporters in the league.”

He added: “Maybe they are licking their wounds and feel a little bit down like the players have been. But if they appreciate the effort our players put in on Tuesday hopefully we can do the same again on Saturday and get the fans right behind us.”

Coleman believes an early goal would lift spirits, not just in the stands but on the pitch and in the dug-out.

“It would, but if we don’t we’ve still got to keep pecking away,” he said.

“It wasn’t our night on Tuesday but there’s no reason why the same thing should happen (today). If we keep up the level of performance and level of pressure that we applied on Tuesday we’ve got a good chance of winning the game.”

Stanley edged a nine-goal thriller when they played Northampton earlier this season, in what was Coleman’s first game back in charge.

“When they go in it’s great, but you don’t get many of them a season, and particularly away from home you don’t get many,” said the Reds boss.

Goals have recently been harder to come by. But Coleman remains encouraged by the chances his side are creating.

“We’ve had other games where we’ve created as many chances but we converted a lot of them,” he continued.

“On Tuesday we had 20 shots, so we must have been doing something right.

“We’ll have another go. We’ve got to believe that we’re going to score goals and we’ve got to believe we’re going to win games, and we have got a squad that’s good enough to win a lot of games.

“We have turned our form around in the way we played on Tuesday so we’ve got to hope that we continue the improvement.”

Coleman will run fitness checks on Tom Aldred, who missed his first game in 93 on Tuesday with a knee injury, and forward Kal Naismith.

n A pitch inspection will take place at the Store First Stadium at 8.30am this morning.