Oates and Ottley claim awards

Paul Martin was happy to see Romford’s youth acknowledged at the club’s end of season awards.

David Ottley collected the Presidents Cup, while Joe Oates was named young player of the year.

And Martin felt it was no more than the pair deserved.

He said: “David is only a young lad, but he was sitting on the bench at Horsham.

“Now he has played at our level and found his feet and he’s a cool customer at right-back.

“Joe was released by Dagenham & Redbridge and got a bit disheartened with things.

“That can be a player’s downfall, but he has come in and done well.

“He couldn’t understand why he was left out at times early on and his attitude wasn’t brilliant, but after Christmas he has understood more.

“He only turned 18 recently but has rightly played over 30 games for us this season, which is a big step.”

Having seen Boro improve on their previous points tally in Ryman One North this term, Martin now faces an anxious wait to see which players return for pre-season training.

He added: “Ideally I’d like to keep this squad together and bring five or six youngsters in.

“I can’t get the players to sign now, they want to go on their holidays! But we’ll let them know about pre-season and I will put in a few calls and we’ll see.

“I’m all for youngsters playing first-team football. If you don’t experiment you never know, but we’ve got to do it to keep costs down.

“But if we do it right and get the right personnel, we can have another good season.”