Dartford chairman Steve Irving admitted he’s been shocked by their relegation but insists that dropping down a division is not terminal.

The Darts will be playing Isthmian Premier football next season after a dismal National League South campaign.

Dartford finished fourth-bottom after winning their final game of the season, 2-1 at home to Truro last weekend.

In an honest and forthright interview, Mr Irving admitted mistakes had been made in the past 12 months but vowed the future’s still bright at Princes Park.

“Of course, it has shocked us,” he stated. “The last few years, it’s been second place or fourth place and play-offs, we’ve lost in the play-offs for four of the last six years.

“We thoroughly expected at the beginning of the season that we’d be up there challenging for the championship, let alone the play-offs.

“Although we’ve had one or two heavier defeats recently, so many of the games have been one-goal defeats, and late goals.

“I think one of the key factors has been the fitness levels haven’t been up to the norm and we’ve faded a bit towards the end of games and conceded late goals.

“Obviously, it’s been a very disappointing season. It’s not something we expected was going to happen.

“Even in the last few months where we made the managerial change, we seriously expected we’d be able to avoid relegation but things didn’t really improve in terms of results, although I believe that performances were much better.

“The players were more together and, on the whole, they worked their socks off and put in a pretty good shift to the end. It was nice to get the win on the last day of the season and in front of a decent crowd, given we were already relegated.”

Dartford started the season under the management of Alan Dowson but he was sacked in January with director of football - and former boss - Tony Burman taking interim charge.

Ady Pennock was given the thankless task of trying to turn it around with just 11 games left but the inevitable relegation was confirmed a week before the end of the season.

“Undoubtedly, there’s something gone wrong,” said Mr Irving. “As a collective, it was a poor pre-season to be honest, we didn’t get the games that we expected at the beginning.

“We had so many injuries at the start which then created the need for loan signings, and they got injured and needed to be replaced.

“It was a never-ending cycle of injuries and loan players. I’ve never been a great fan of loan players, certainly in the numbers we’ve had this season.

“We probably left things a little bit too late to make the change when we did in January, I think in hindsight we could have done it a bit earlier. And, again in hindsight, we could have appointed earlier but there were very good reasons why we didn’t, and we’ve paid the price for that now.

“There’s still so much good going on at the club in terms of the whole structure, the community, the academy, women’s side, youth sides. It’s not a root-and-branch change needed, it’s just focusing again on what’s most important and that’s getting the first team promoted back to the National League.

“I don’t know whether it’s complacency but certainly it’s an opportunity to revisit where we’ve been, what we’ve done in the last few months and perhaps we have taken our eye off the ball and let things slip.

“It’s not terminal, there’s a few things that need changing and we will do that.

“What we need are the fans to get behind the club and the manager for next season, buy their season tickets, come through the gate and hopefully enjoy their football again. We desperately want to get promoted back as soon as possible.”

As expected, Pennock will be working with a reduced budget next season at the lower level. But he’s got the backing of the Dartford board to lead a promotion challenge as the club seek an immediate return to National League football.

“Ady is a lovely guy and he’s very experienced,” added Mr Irving. “We need to give him as much support as we can, and we will do.

“We hope it will still be a competitive budget, there’s been some revising of numbers but it’s not a huge deficit and we’ve got every faith in Ady as a person.

“There’s been obvious signs of a change in attitude among the squad, there’s got to be a change in the fitness levels which has been identified as a major issue for next season that’s got to improve.

“That hopefully will then avoid some of the late goals we’ve conceded.

“Ady is his own man and he knows what he needs to do and hopefully he’ll go out and do that next season.”