What might have been for Rangers

Some of the staff at Stafford Rangers can't help wondering what might have been if they had been able to hold onto all of their star players for the season.

The 2009/10 schedule drew a close last weekend and it was a case of mission accomplished for Rangers, having not only beat the drop from the Blue Square North but bettering their final league position by two places on the previous campaign with a better home record to boot.

Manager Chris Brindley had spent the whole year thinking fast, losing six first-team regulars against his will over the course of the season and having to draft in players to replace them.

Ben Mills and Jake Moult left for Alfreton, captain Bobby Wilson went to play in Australia, Curtley Williams also left to play abroad, Jermaine Johnson went back to Derby County at the end of his loan spell, Tony Dinning quit the club - and all six left at different points.

Winger Levi Reid finished the season in a vastly different team than the one he started in after returning to the club last August, and feels that the outlook would be even more prosperous now if the original squad had been kept together.

He said: "If we could have kept the players that we have had throughout the season, we wouldn't have been too far away. Everytime we got settled over the season we would lose a player.

"We also had lads come in, but never managed to keep hold of all of them. That has been the trouble."

Assistant boss Darren Read knows first-hand of the restrictions that have faced the cluband, whilst agreeing that the departed stars would have made a difference, hailed those that stayed on and steered the club to safety.

He said: "You look at the players we lost over the course of the season, that is strength in key areas. It would have given us a much stronger squad and a lot more resources to call on.

"It's one of them what ifs, but it wasn't to be and the boys that did hang around, along with the lads we have brought in, have finished the job that those before them had started.

"At the end of the day, it was job done for us."