Comment: Wilkin shakes off his play-off record on a joyous day for AFC Telford

By his own admission, Kevin Wilkin’s play-off record over the last decade has been disappointing, coming up short in his last four campaigns across his spells at Brackley Town and Telford.

After winning three promotions through the play-offs in his first managerial role – an eight-year spell at Nuneaton Borough – the 57-year-old has been haunted by defeats at the final hurdle and made no secret of his frustrations at that fact prior to Monday’s final.

“I’ve not had the best record in winning play-off games recently,” Wilkin told the Shropshire Star prior to the Bucks’ semi-final against Halesowen Town. “It’s a great way to win and a very tough way to lose, which is something I certainly understand.”

Thirteen years on from his last success, Wilkin’s memory of that winning feeling may have started to fade, but Telford’s chief ensured he made the most of a rare quiet moment on what was, from start to beyond the finish, a chaotic day.

Monday’s game proved a fitting end to another up and down season for the Shropshire side, and so many of the afternoon’s events were indicative of the good and bad of Telford’s campaign. Thankfully the good outweighed the bad for Wilkin’s side.

As they have been for the best part of 40 games, Telford proved an attacking force to be reckoned with, with goalscoring threats popping up from all over the field.

Orrin Pendley, who netted six goals in the 2023/24 campaign, saved his best goalscoring exploits until the final week of the season with crucial goals in Telford’s last league game, play-off semi-final and final.

Jordan Piggott’s well-taken equaliser on Monday was a sign of his attacking quality, something he has not been able to demonstrate as much this season having played in defence for the majority of his appearances. It was just his second goal of the season having netted against AFC Sudbury back in September.

Jahdahn Fridye-Harper’s 80th-minute strike was his first for the club having signed from Barwell in February and capped off an impressive three-month spell at the club. He was one of several new additions who made a crucial impact to the Bucks’ promotion charge.

And Rhys Hilton, Wilkin’s first new signing of the 2024 summer, netted his third of the season to add the finishing touch in stoppage time. The man for an important goal, Hilton’s two goals in the league campaign earned the Bucks four valuable points, and without those their chances of a play-off place would have been at serious risk.

To score four goals in a play-off final without your 32-goal striker getting on the scoresheet and your second top scorer being subbed off with a first-half injury is testament to the all-round threat posed by Wilkin’s side.

And while the two sloppy goals that they allowed Kettering to score highlighted the problems Telford have faced all season when it comes to keeping the ball out of their own net, it only added to the importance of their red-hot form in front of goal.

Across the 21 games they won this season, including their play-off campaign, Telford scored 63 goals. They conceded 22, more than a goal a game, in those victories, and won just six of them to nil.

Coming from a goal behind in both play-off games was nothing new to Wilkin’s side either, having picked up a remarkable 19 points from losing positions throughout the league campaign.

It is no surprise then that after a decade-long play-off heartache, the pain of relegation in 2023, another mid-season rebuild of his squad and managing 48 games that included 162 goals in all competitions, Kevin Wilkin needed a quiet moment to stand and reflect on what had been.

Plans for next season will no doubt begin to take shape soon, and the wheels are already in motion for discussions over squad size, budgets, contract renewals and new signings.

But at quarter to six on Monday afternoon none of that mattered to Kevin Wilkin as he stood alone on the pitch applauding the remaining Telford supporters at Latimer Park.

The only thing that mattered was that through his guidance and the hard work of everyone involved with the club, AFC Telford United are on the up once again.