Welling United manager Steve King predicts even tougher National League South next season
09:30, 14 May 2019
updated: 09:30, 14 May 2019
Welling boss Steve King says it will be even harder to emulate this season's exploits next year.
The Wings finished third in National League South before losing 1-0 at Woking in Sunday's play-off final. They also lifted the London Senior Cup.
But with big guns Aldershot, Havant and Maidstone relegated plus Weymouth and Dorking Wanderers among the newly-promoted clubs, King is predicting an even more competitive division come August.
"It will be hard to do better than third if I'm honest," said King.
"We'll compete with the restraints of what we've got, which is right.
"We're never going to be a big club financially in the league, we'll be a 'have a go' budget and see if we can make that better.
"To finish third and two points off second is remarkable. To emulate this year is going to be tough but our targets are can we make the play-offs and can we go from there?"
King will meet with his current squad this week to determine who will stay at Park View Road - and who has already set their sights on a move elsewhere.
"It's an even tougher year next year, make no bones about that," he added.
"There's some big clubs coming in next year, the ones that have come down and the ones that have been promoted.
"It's going to be much tougher. I'll meet with the whole squad in the week and I have to make decisions on who to keep and who we don't keep.
"It might be a rebuilding job, it might not, we might be able to keep the majority and go again.
"We have to improve on last year, that was my thing where I go somewhere I have to improve on the year before. We ended up with 17 points more, finished third, gates are up, unbelievable home record.
"We ticked a lot of boxes and we deserved to get to the play-off final, which at Christmas people probably thought was a long shot."
