Erkan Okay insists the Soham Town Rangers squad deserve recognition at the end of the Bostik North Division campaign.

Ely Standard: Soham Town Rangers assistant boss Erkan Okay. Picture: ANDY BURFORDSoham Town Rangers assistant boss Erkan Okay. Picture: ANDY BURFORD (Image: Archant)

The Greens travel to play-off bound Heybridge Swifts for their final fixture this Saturday, 3pm, with a finish in the top half of the table still a possibility.

And Okay, player/assistant boss to Robbie Mason, insists the club can look back on a job well done in their first season at the helm.

“It’s a tough game to finish at Heybridge, but we can enjoy it,” said Okay. “The lads will be getting a pat on the back regardless of the result.

“We had to rebuild a squad from nothing and stabilise the club on the pitch. It took time to get where we wanted to be, but we can be happy with what we’ve achieved.

“I truly believe that if we started the season with the current squad that we could have pushed for a play-off place.

“We’ll sit down with the board and hopefully they can match what we want to be able to push on again next season. Myself and Rob are determined to succeed and we have to do all we can to keep the squad together.

“We have a lot of good young players who will become even better in the future after the experience of playing 30-40 games at this level.”

Soham’s super away form has been a highlight. They have gained 35 of their 58 points on the road with a 3-1 victory at lowly Brentwood on Tuesday night boosting that tally.

Joe Carden put the Greens ahead just after the half-hour and Lewis Clayton doubled the advantage midway through the second period.

Jon Kaye hit a late clincher before the hosts claimed a consolation in stoppage time.

“It was another great result on the road which featured plenty of good football in a pleasing team performance,” added Okay.

“It was admittedly a young Brentwood side, but we approached the game well. We created a lot of chances and fully deserved the win.”

But their record at Julius Martin Lane has been less impressive with Soham losing 10 times on their own turf.

They were beaten 2-0 by promotion-chasing Bowers & Pitsea in their final home outing of the campaign last Saturday.

Substitute Fahad Nyanja struck twice in the final four minutes to hand the visitors victory. They had also seen two other efforts ruled out – for a foul and offside respectively – shortly before making the breakthrough.

It was tough to take for Rangers who were stung by an injury-time winner from Ware in their previous home fixture a few days earlier.

Okay continued: “We were disappointed with the result, but encouraged by the way we competed so well for 80 minutes against a team pushing for promotion.

“It would have been nice to finish with a positive result in our last home game, but Bowers & Pitsea knew they had to work for their win.”