Leek Town's slide down the league pyramid was halted by a fine late run of form, just as the Moorlands side looked in danger of suffering another relegation.
They eventually finished well outside the drop zone and live to fight another season in the Evo-Stick First Division South, some way below their recent spell in the Conference.
Youngster Dan Cope, who topped the goalscoring charts last season, suprisingly returned after a summer in the US to lead the attack once again and netted 16 times during the campaign to finish top scorer once more.
Leek started the season in poor form and won just one in their first eleven games, losing eight of them. The club was desperate for some good cup runs to boost once again ailing coffers but those eight defeats included preliminary round defeats in the FA Cup, Presidents Cup and FA Trophy to eliminate those avenues for extra cash into the club.
The two remaining cups, the League Cup and Staffs Senior Cup, also saw defeat at the first hurdle, to Kidsgrove and Rushall Olympic respectively, results that meant Leek exited five cups without winning a single game. Wayne Johnson was the fall guy and the manager left teh club, to be replaced by former Middlesbrough defender Neil Cox.
The form didn't really improve after Leek could concentrate on the league and by January the team had just three victories from 26 games in all competitions during 2010/11! That left Town perilously close to the bottom two but they then started grinding out some much needed results and a topsy-turvy 4-3 win over Lincoln United started the revival which saw a 4-0 win over Market Drayton and other victories over Quorn, Newcastle Town, Stamford, Goole and Loughborough before four wins from the final five games ensured a loftier than expected finishing position for Town and some momentum to carry into the summer and, hopefully, next season.
They will once again be under new management though after Cox handed in his resignation with two games of the season left, citing personal reasons, and Crewe former assistant manager and Leek legend Neil Baker taking the reigns ahead of the new season.
League record: P42 W14 D5 L23 F64 A74 PTS47 (16th)
Top scorers: 16-Dan Cope 10-Anthony Malbon 7-Leon Ashman
FA Cup: Preliminary Round
FA Trophy: Preliminary Round
Unibond League Cup: 1st round
Presidents Cup: Premliminary Round
Staffs Senior Cup: 1st round