THIS season has been one of the best of my career so far and it’s fantastic for Worcester City to still be in the hunt for the play-offs at this stage.

I firmly believe that if we win our last three games we will reach the top five so, to a certain degree, it’s in our own hands.

Losing to Nuneaton Town on Easter Monday was a setback and we are disappointed but it’s not the end of the world.

You have to look back to what the expectations were at the start of the season and we have certainly exceeded them.

We try and play the right way by keeping the ball on the deck and are up there in the fair play league which tells us our discipline is good.

Those things have made it an enjoyable campaign and, whatever happens in the next three games, it’s been a success.

A lot of my playing career was through a time when the play-offs were not in existance. The champions went up and that was that so the opportunities were very few and far between.

That’s slightly frustrating from an ex-player’s point of view because I am sure some of the sides I played in would have been challenging.

My only success in the play-offs came with Bromsgrove Rovers towards the end of my career, when we beat Willenhall Town in the final to win promotion to the Southern League Premier Division in 2007.

That was a big personal success and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

However, most seasons turned into damp squibs. When Worcester were battling relegation from Conference South in 2010, we needed to beat Eastleigh on the final day to give ourselves an opportunity of staying up.

It is a game I remember but for all the wrong reasons, I didn’t enjoy it and there was immense pressure.

However, it’s the one time we had something to play for at the end of a season.

That has changed this year and it looks like the lowest we can finish in Blue Square Bet North is seventh.

I have often talked about gradual improvement and attracting the right kind of players. To do that, you have to be seen to have a chance of success.

Irrespective of what happens now, we will be viewed as one of the teams that can challenge next season and that gives us the opportunity to attract players who will improve our squad.

I know finances play a part but Worcester is a decent club with a reputation for looking after their players. We have also got a good team so that bodes well for next season.

I am sure there will be players that will want to move on or who will have other offers but we have got a lot of good, youngsters with potential such as Jacob Rowe, Michael Taylor, Tyler Weir and Dwayne Samuels. We want to keep hold of them and I would be disappointed if they left.

I want to try and retain the huge majority of the squad and I hope to be fine-tuning rather than having a major overhaul.