Long Buckby scored 99 goals while enjoying their best season in the UCL for 23 years, but unsung defender Stuart Smeathers was the star turn at the Station Road club's annual presentation evening.
Long Buckby scored 99 goals while enjoying their best season in the UCL for 23 years, but unsung defender Stuart Smeathers was the star turn at the Station Road club's annual presentation evening.
Equally at home anywhere in the back four, Smeathe
rs was voted player of the year by his team mates and also picked up the most man of the match awards on the club website.
A midfield player in his younger days, Smeathers has had more clubs than Jack Nicklaus, with Bedford Town, Raunds, Aylesbury United, Cogenhoe, Rugby Town, Ford Sports and Northampton Spencer all among his previous ports of call.
Smeathers' trophies were handed over by Bucks chairman Guy Loveland and long-serving club secretary Dave Austin in the Station Road clubhouse.
The supporters voted for speedy striker Ben Foster, whose 33 goals made him the UCL's top scorer alongside Boston's Gary Bull and Cogenhoe namesake
Rob Foster.
Manager Glenn Botterill
nominated Richard Bunting, the team's workhorse, who once again took no prisoners in midfield.
Botterill himself deserved
credit for spending the chairman's money so wisely after three
dismal campaigns in which the Bucks had finished in the bottom five.
Although 10 points adrift of UCL champions Stotfold, Long Buckby picked up their best points haul (81) in 35 years of continuous Premier Division football.
The clubman of the year award went to groundsman Jim Threadgold, a real son of the soil who transformed the Station Road pitch from one of the worst in the league to one of the best!
A retired farmworker, Threadgold was an
uncompromising full back with Brington United in the Northamptonshire Combination during his own playing days.
The Bucks have championship aspirations again next season, along with a whole host of other clubs, including current title holders Stotfold, St Neots, Boston and newly-promoted Daventry Town.
At the other end of the scale Wootton BC, who finished above only relegated Kempston, have parted company with their third manager inside a year.
Disappointed at narrowly
missing out on promotion from Division One, Daventry United will also have to cope with the
relegation of their UCL
reserve team.
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