We won't be sitting on our hands, says Brackley boss Wilkin

Kevin Wilkin insists Brackley Town won’t be “sitting on their hands” as the reality of the National League North season being over sinks in.

The result of the clubs’ vote was confirmed last week and it saw the National League North and South divisions declared null and void while the top division will continue until the end of the season.

The vote came about after clubs were faced with the prospect of taking out loans to see themselves through to the end of the campaign after being led to believe they would be receiving grants like they did for the first three months of the season.

As a club, Brackley have kept which way they voted close to their chest. The Saints were sitting in fourth place in the table when the season came to a close.

Boss Wilkin believes clubs will find it hard to “fill the void” over the next couple of months but he revealed Brackley have already turned their attention towards next season.

“There is always that sense of reality once a decision has been made,” the Saints manager said.

“Making the decision is one thing but then the reality of no football from now until the start of pre-season is not what anyone wants.

“We have to find ways to fill that void. We are all footballing people and we are going to miss it.

“And what makes it worse is that I think this could have been avoided.

“When you have had to make decisions and there is that thought of ‘had we done this differently’ then that just makes it even harder to swallow.

“But now it’s not a case of sitting on your hands and watching things happen around you. There are lots of things that need to be put in place.

“With the lads we have got on board at the moment, we obviously want to retain all of those good players and then compliment them with others as well.

“We have already had a couple of meetings to sit down and discuss where it goes and where we can take it.

“When the time comes, we want to pick up where we left off and that takes a lot of organisation and conversation and endeavour.

“We are not going to down tools. We will be busy and will be trying to build a squad so that we are ready for when next season does start.”

There was positive news this week as Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid out his ‘roadmap’ to lead the country out of the Covid-19 lockdown.

As it stands, fans could be back in stadia in the middle of May which, in turn, should mean fans will be back in grounds as normal for the start of next season.

And Wilkin is certainly hoping that will be the case.

“It’s what everyone is hoping for isn’t it that crowds are back and we have some sort of normality and what we have been used to in the past,” he added.

“That’s what we are all craving. We all wanted to be at that stage now but that’s not the situation.

“Let’s just hope we can have a full season. We have had two curtailed seasons now, which isn’t great. But hopefully we are through that and hopefully we don’t find ourselves in this position again.”