Wilkin faces fight to keep hold of his best players

Saints missed out on promotion for the second season running following Sunday’s Vanarama National League North play-off semi-final defeat – on penalties – to Spennymoor Town.

Wilkin said: “The progress we’ve made and what we’ve achieved has obviously alerted clubs from higher divisions. So it’s not going to be easy to hold on to every player but we’ll do all we can to keep them here.

“We’ve proved again we can match any team in this division but the challenge is to do it again and grow the club at the same time. We don’t want to have to take a couple of steps backwards if we can’t hold on to our best players.

“It will be difficult to keep everyone but that’s the intention within the club, the chairman and Allan [Leighton] are fully behind us.

“The play-offs take all your focus but when you reflect on the season then you have to give credit to the players and staff that we’ve managed to finish third again, up against some very big clubs in this division. It’s been another terrific season but I want to take it a step further and my intention remains to take us out of this division.”