WORCESTER City can no longer be viewed as the “whipping boys” in National League North after their “terrific” turnaround in form, according to manager Carl Heeley.

At the end of August, Worcester were languishing at the bottom of the table after no wins in their opening seven games.

But almost a month later City are in 12th position aiming to extend a six-match unbeaten streak when they take on Nuneaton Town at the Victoria Ground on Saturday (3pm).

Heeley claimed Worcester were considered to be a team who would simply “roll over” for their opponents.

But, after defeating AFC Telford United 3-1 in the FA Cup on Tuesday, City’s boss believes they are proving their doubters wrong.

“That’s four wins in five and we have not been beaten in the last six games, so we are doing OK,” said Heeley, whose team have won their last three league fixtures.

“Everybody thought we were going to be the whipping boys and City would just roll over. Well, maybe that’s not the case.”

Despite their slow start to the season, Heeley said he never questioned his side’s efforts but insisted it was important they “eradicated” their mistakes.

“They have been terrific,” he said. “I don’t think there have been any games this season when this group have not given every ounce of energy they have got.

“It was very frustrating as we were giving a lot of cheap goals away and that was clouding our results.

“But that seems to have been eradicated now, we are on a great run and long may that continue.”

Heeley says they are playing with more self-assurance and felt they demonstrated their confidence in midweek when they came from behind to beat Telford.

“It would have been easy when we went 1-0 down to roll over but we never looked a beaten side at any stage of the game,” he added.

“It was important 10 minutes after they scored that we didn’t concede another one.

“We said if we needed to stay patient and take it into the last 20 minutes, we would get our opportunities and when they came we had to be ruthless. That’s exactly what we did.”