Ian Burchnall: Notts County's National League play-off campaign 'feels bigger'

Ian Burchnall is in his second season as Notts County manager

Manager Ian Burchnall says the National League play-offs "feel bigger" this year than ever before for Notts County.

The Magpies host Grimsby in Monday's eliminator at Meadow Lane, with a semi-final trip to Wrexham awaiting the winner.

It is Notts' third play-off campaign in three years, having reached the final in 2020 before going out in the last four under Burchnall 12 months ago.

"We need to take this first step, the route to London is tough," he said.

"We are happy to be at home and hope to be on the front foot with that."

While Notts' attempts to regain their status as the "world's oldest football league club" has seen them feature among the promotion contenders in each of their three seasons of non-league football, each of their play-off campaigns until now have been affected by crowd restrictions.

At Wembley in 2020, they lost to Harrogate behind closed doors as fans were kept away during the coronavirus pandemic.

Last season when their hopes were ended at Torquay, only home fans were allowed to attend home ties because of ongoing Covid-19 restrictions.

On Monday, Burchnall expects an "electric atmosphere" at Meadow Lane as he tries to take Notts up in his first full season in charge.

"It was a strange season last year with no fans, and then we were just getting them in for the play-offs. This feels bigger this year," Burchnall told BBC East Midlands Today.

"I'm sure the crowd will push us, we know how big an influence that can be."

Notts won nine of their last 12 regular season games, and have lost just twice since mid-March, to finish fifth in the table and five points above Grimsby in sixth.

None of those wins, however, came against any side that finished in the top six.

"We have to step up," Burchnall said. "We know we have played teams more around the bottom so this poses a totally different game to us.

"When you look across the board at the teams we've played against in the top end of the table, we've beaten Wrexham once, Stockport once, Solihull and Grimsby. We have shown our capabilities to get results against the good teams as well."