‘I CRIED FOR DAYS AFTER TROPHY SEMI-FINAL LOSS’
BOBBY WILKINSON admits he cried for four days after Wealdstone’s crushing 3-0 aggregate FA Trophy semi-final defeat to Brackley, and could not bring himself to watch Sunday’s final. But that didn’t stop the former Hungerford chief reflecting on an impressive first season with the Stones, who went from third-frombottom to 11th in National League South after Wilkinson joined at the end of August. The new man had led Hungerford to promotion through the Southern League South & West play-offs in 2012-13 before taking them to Step 2 for the first time in their history by winning the Sou- thern Premier play-offs three seasons ago. Wilkinson also added two FA Trophy quarter-finals to his list of achievements with Hungerford.
His credentials are second to none, but even he was taken aback by managing to lead Wealdstone to within sight of Wembley.
“It was a fantastic season,” said the Stones boss. “I missed the first five or six games so to come in and do what we did was amazing. To make the semi-finals of the FA Trophy was incredible. But I’m still hurting now. I cried for four days. And our success in that competition probably cost us our play-off place. For us to finish 11th after being third from bottom was a good achievement. But I want more.”
The Trophy run was all the more remarkable because many of the players Wilkinson signed were cuptied.
“I basically had to run 22 players,” he said. “We had a league team and then a Trophy team. And then there’s the number of games we had to play. We had 10 games in 22 days towards the end. We were playing Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. That’s with players who have full-time jobs, so it was hard.
“We were close to the play-offs with a few games to go but the number of games took their toll. We were 1-0 up at Poole [on April 14] and still fighting, before losing that game.”
Two further defeats killed off hopes but there is real optimism next season can be a good one.
Could Wilkinson aim for the Trophy? “I will target success,” he said. “I want to win promotion. We will be releasing a few players but have kept eight and will be bringing in fresh blood to strengthen us further.
“Success comes with hard work and we will keep working hard to ensure that happens.”