AFC Fylde boss takes pride in their season

Jack Muldoon during the Coasters defeat at Boreham Wood

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The Coasters finished in seventh place in their first season at step one of the non-league system.

But their season was brought to an end last week when they exited the play-offs at the quarter-final stage following a 2-1 defeat at Boreham Wood.

Despite suffering play-off heartache, Challinor was delighted with how the season played out for his side.

“I’m really proud of what we managed to achieve,” the Fylde boss told The Gazette.

“I suppose there’s always going to be disappointment when it ended the way it did because you get yourself into the position where we had an opportunity to potentially achieve something.

“But we will look back and learn from where we’ve been this season and hopefully we can have another go next year.”

When asked if he honestly expected to finish in the play-offs at the start of the season, Challinor replied: “You always hope. You go into the season with, not trepidation, but I suppose a bit of apprehension because you’re going into a new league with a new squad.

“We had a big turnaround of players and I think it took us a bit of time to bed in and settle down.

“That wasn’t just down to the uncertainty of a new squad, but also because of the uncertainty of a new league.

“This year I’d imagine we’ll have quite a few new faces so, again, we’ll have that to contend with.

“But ultimately we go into a division that we’ve had a season’s worth of experience with and we now know what to expect.

“We know where we need to be better and where we need to improve and hopefully we can hit the ground running.

“If you look at our form from 10 games in until the end of the season, we were probably in the top three.

“So it was probably the start of the season where we had some draws where we should have won and some losses we should have drew that have ultimately cost us a little bit.

“But in terms of where we’re at and what we’re looking at, I don’t think much will change from this year.”