WITH one game left of their league campaign, Ledbury manager Ian Merrick described the 2024/25 season as "a real rollercoaster."
Merrick stepped down as boss at the end of last season but a tumultuous start to the season saw him take the reigns back in November.
"I think I took over again around the middle of November," he said. "A great analogy is it has been a real rollercoaster. Some really good performances, some real highs and looked kind of like a settled team actually – we played four, won two, drew one, and lost one. The loss was a narrow loss to Bromyard who were obviously doing very well in the league.
"After Christmas it has been really up-and-down. We’ve had some really good performances, but you tear your hair out because you feel like you’re making some progress, you take one step forward and then five or six back – it has been a rollercoaster."
It looks like they will be ending the season on a high, having won their penultimate game against Westfields Reserves by a 6-1 score line.
"It could have been double figures, we were quite wasteful in front of goal actually," he reflected. "We played very well, obviously they are near the bottom of the league but it was a real good performance, a lot of young players in the team.
"The only criticism I could have is that we just didn’t score enough goals, but it was a real good team performance – a couple of well-worked team goals in there as well."
Next time out, in their final game of this campaign, the side travel away to face a struggling Welland side.
"I’ve got bad memories of Welland because we’ve been there before and had to win to get promotion," said Merrick. "They equalised in the 94th minute which cost us promotion to the Hellenic.
"My memories of Welland aren’t good, my record is played two, drawn one, lost one, so my record isn’t great there either. It’s quite good that this is the last game of the season and there is nothing riding on it because I would probably be quite nervous otherwise.
"We targeted two wins from the last two games this year, against two teams below us. Get two positive results on the board and finish in a nice manner."
Already looking ahead to next season, Merrick is hopeful of a promotion charge.
"We look forward to next season, we are making contacts," he said.
"We are always targeting promotion, I am forever the optimist.
"That was always our aim, we are always targeting promotion from the start of pre-season, always had a competitive team – definitely go again and try to get towards the top this time."
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