Downham boss: My greatest achievement in football

Downham Town boss Dale Stokes says winning promotion to Step 4 football is his greatest achievement in the game.The club were promoted to their highest-ever standing in non-league football with a 2-1 victory over Walsham le Willows in the Thurlow Nunn play-off final on a historic afternoon at the Memorial Field.Stokes, who has been involved with the club from a young age, had guided the club to promotion from Step 6 and Norfolk Senior Senior Cup success in the past two seasons.But according to the manager, this campaign tops it all.Reflecting on an emotional afternoon, Stokes said: “The Norfolk Senior Cup had been won before a few times, but not since 1966 and promotion to Step 5 the time would have been the biggest achievement, but I suppose when you look at the levels this is now the biggest achievement and nobody expected it from us today, that’s the thing.”Even before the play-offs, we were completely written off by so many people to even be in the top half of the table, but I guess it was just the fact that we lost so many players and we had to rebuild again.”Even today, we’ve gone into it without Dylan Kirk, who’s arguably been one of our best players in the last six weeks.”Eoin (McQuaid), who I thought was our best player today, had to go off injured, as has Laggy (Lagshan Sivakumar), who was probably our second most effective player, so it has been difficult.” Stokes added: “It’s mental considering the situation we were in when Craig (Dickson) and I took over in 2018. At that stage, we were never sure what was going to happen. “We had two seasons that were disrupted by Covid and since then we’ve had a defeat in the play-off final, won a play-off final, won the Norfolk Senior Cup last year and now we’ve been promoted again.”It’s been a bit of a crazy four seasons where we’ve done something every year almost, but coming off the pitch, everyone’s been saying to me, what the hell is going on?Stokes said the victory and promotion were dedicated to the town and the players, who have rallied together all season.And coming from the town himself made the day that extra little bit special for the Downham chief.”My passion is with Downham, which probably to some people is quite sad, how much I do at the club and how involved I am,” he admitted. “It takes over my life pretty much, but I think I’m just like that in general.”When I get stuck into it, I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. I was down at this point at half eight, cutting the grass to get the pitch ready for the game.”When I’m in town, you see people whom I coach. A lot of the kids who come and watch, so there are a lot of connections from different places. “It’s just a massive thing for me to do it for my town club that I started playing football when I was six or five or six.”Stokes ended by praising goalkeeper Duncan McAnally.”Duncan has made an important save when I think the scores were level at 1-1 and it was a huge save,” he said. “I’m so pleased for Duncan because he’s been here the whole time since I started. He’s one of my best mates anyway and to miss so much of the season through injury, he was gutted.”He’s come in and been brilliant for us. Just having his sort of game management experience and the way he is with the younger players just adds a lot to the squad.”Downham Town: McAnally, Miller, Reed (Gould 84), N. Castellan, Bird, M. Castellan, Sivakumar (Visocanskis 63), White, Edge (Murkin 84), McQuaid (Watts-Sturrock 55), Royle.Walsham le Willows: Dunne: Cooper, McKenzie-Vince, Collins (Hubbard 63), Lanchester, Moss, Chaplin, Glover, Garcia, Bugg, Twinn (Huckvale 76).Attendance: 700.