MANAGER Carl Heeley says Worcester City must learn how to manage “the hill” at the Victoria Ground to make home advantage count.

City made their first appearance at their new temporary home since securing their ground-share with Bromsgrove Sporting when they took on Romulus.

Playing with the slope in their favour, they powered into a 4-0 lead through Elijah Chilekwa, Chekaine Steele, Lee Hughes and a trialist.

But Romulus turned the tide in the second half with three goals, including a 40-yard lob from former Worcester striker Mark Danks, to startle City, who hung on for a 4-3 victory.

Heeley was pleased to arrange the fixture before hosting Harrogate Town in the National League North opener a week tomorrow but admitted there were areas they needed to work on.

“We have got to learn how to play on this pitch because it’s no coincidence, although there were other factors, the halves were dominated by the teams kicking down the hill. We have to look at managing that,” he said.

“Of course it is different (to Aggborough) but it’s our home now and we will make the most of it and make it as difficult as we can for teams coming to visit us.

"We will see how we go a week on Saturday but hopefully we can make home advantage count.”

Heeley added: “We needed to play here and a game is better than training. It’s an old-fashioned ground. There’s plenty of grass on the pitch. It is a bit dry but hopefully we will get some rain on it and it will be fine.

“We were grateful to Kidderminster and are grateful to Bromsgrove for allowing us to use their facilities.”

Worcester’s tactic of sending long balls in behind Romulus’ defence paid off in the opening period but Heeley insisted it was not an indication of how they were going to utilise the slope.

“We didn’t set up to do anything as we wanted to keep the ball and pass it when we could and have energy coming from deep in midfield and we had all of those attributes,” he said.

“But in the second half we got sloppy, players didn’t work hard enough and Romulus got a foothold and were the better team.”

City play their final pre-season friendly at Leamington on Saturday (3pm).