It's 'Fortress' St James Park for Wilkin's Brackley boys

Brackley Town would be well within their rights to rename their ground ‘Fortress St James Park’ after a startling statistic was revealed this week.

The ‘Non League Statistics’ (@NL_Statistics) Twitter account sent out a tweet saying: “Since the start of the 2017/18 season, Brackley Town have only lost 7 of their 67 league fixtures at home. St. James Park = Fortress”.

It’s those sorts of numbers that have helped Kevin Wilkin’s team maintain their upward curve in recent years and ensured that they are always challenging at the right end of the National League North table.

The manager himself didn’t realise just how good their form has been at home in that period but was quick to give the credit to his players.

Wilkin said: “I don’t study the statistics as closely as that, so it wasn’t something I was aware of!

“But it’s always nice to hear a positive stat like that and the credit goes to the players.

“I have often said that I know we have been strong at home and we have made our ground a hard place to come to.

“You can gauge that off the reaction of clubs. Chester came here earlier in the season and took away a point and for a club of that size to come to St James Park and be happy to pick up a point tells a bit of a story I suppose.

“This season we have drawn a few at home and our form there at the start of this season has probably been as indifferent as it has been at any point during that period.

“But the lads have done fantastically well to build up that sort of record and, naturally, we want it to continue. Whether we will get the chance remains to be seen!”