Nuneaton enjoyed a very successful overall season and were one of the biggest overachievers in the league over the course of the last nine months. Kevin Wilkin’s side showed impressive capacity and endurance to stay up rather comfortably at the end in their first season after promotion but the close season did not bode well for them. The team lost a big player in Simon Forsdick, due to a serious knee injury, and there were almost no signifiant additions to the squad, bar versatile defender Theo Streete. Thus, with a rather limited and small squad, Boro embarked on what was expected to be a pretty bumpy ride ahead. However, they seemed to be very well-drilled and tough to play against right from the first game of the season. They actually won seven and drew two of the first nine games of the season, getting as many points in these first two months as some expected them to do over the course of the entire season. Wilkin did not seem to do anything special but showed impressive tactical flexibility and made the players really work hard for each other. Louis Moult was a genuine revelation up front alongside the skipper Andy Brown, providing the sort of goals and presence that seemed to be beyond him after a number of seasons where he seemed unable to realise his potential. The dynamic and industrious midfield provided a good base while the defence was extremely solid despite the manager constantly switching between two keepers in these early games. Some superb wins against much more resourceful teams like Wrexham, Grimsby and Kidderminster gave the team real belief and they were actually top of the table in late September. That was, of course, bound to come to an end and they indeed suffered a nine-game winless run after that. The performances were not that bad during this run but the players seemed to lose a bit of belief and momentum. But Wilkin showed the capacity to get them going again and a strong run of form in December saw them move back into the play-off places. They were expected to tail off after the turn of the year but the players maintained their work rate and efficiency and continued to get good results on mostly regular basis. That kept them in and around the play-off places as the season reached its key stage. However, the goals of Moult dried up and the wins became harder to attain. Yet, the team was still very much in play-off contention when the shock news of Wilkin’s immediate departure came in mid-March. The manager accepted the challenge to take over at Wrexham and left the Midlands side very much in the lurch with still eight vital games to play. The impact on the morale was expectedly huge and the results dropped off immediately. Boro did not win again until the final day of the season and narrow defeats to Braintree, Grimsby and Halifax, all direct rivals, saw them fall down the table. Brian Reid was appointed as a new permanent manager a week before the end of the season while the team finished in a deceptively low 13th place in the table given that they were genuinely among the candidates for promotion until very late on. That was still a season to remember and the challenge for Reid is to build on a good work done and ensure that Boro do not stagnate next season.
