Thirty year old Boreham Wood Football Club Manager Luke Garrard described his best ever achievement in football at the end of a gruelling season that saw the rookie Manager, appointed in October after Ian Allinson’s resignation, steer his side to safety in the Vanarama National League on the final day;
“ I have been promoted five times in my career and this achievement tops all of those occasions. I am hugely relieved that we have got over the line. Yesterday beating Welling United 3-0 in front of those incredible fans was something I will never forget. Nobody gave us a prayer after losing to Southport with three games to go. We needed we thought two wins from three, which turned out to be not enough and after failing to get back to back wins on the board we had a massive challenge. I believed in the players. The Chairman told me you will feel that you cannot breathe at some stage and that was true! Yet the players were absolutely superb again yesterday. I can single out the performances of Ricky Shakes, Clovis Kamdjo and Conor Clifford who were absolutely massive out there. That does not distract from the overall team effort though, to a man they did their jobs. We were fortunate with the first goal, then Luke Howell pulls a magic finish out of the bag, before Clovis got the goal his performance merited. I am buzzing for the Chairman who has put in an unbelievable effort to get us over the line. I cannot thank the fans enough, they were absolutely immense yesterday.”
Garrard then revealed that work on next season has already begun; “ Now we know which League we are playing in there is so much to look forward to. I have the experience now of having seen our opposition face to face. We know how we will travel to games, we know which areas we need to strengthen, the experience has been a massive learning curve and I am taking everything on board. I have already been on the phone this morning ( Sunday), speaking to players and I am doing the same after this call. In truth I never want to go through that last three weeks of the season again! As a group we under achieved, that is not to question. Look at our last three results where we scored six goals and won all three, compared to a run of scoring two goals in seven games around December time. We will come back the stronger and better for our experiences. I take my hat off to Danny Cowley and have spoken to him after his inspirational achievements with Braintree Town this season. There is living proof that clubs like ours can achieve what many doubters claim are unachieveable goals and with that in mind I cannot wait for next season!”
