Weldon honoured to be made captain

The popular forward was given the captaincy for a 5-3 defeat at table-topping Telford in the English Premier League by coach Slava Koulikov.

Regular skipper James Ferrara missed the trip to Shropshire as his wife gave birth to their second child that evening.

Weldon said: “It was a real pleasure to captain the team and very nice of Slava to give me the honour.

“We certainly had a lot of fun with it in the changing room.

“It was a shame to not pick up the win, but it definitely wasn’t due to a lack of effort as we gave it everything.”

Coach Koulikov was quick to sing the praises of Weldon, who has seen his sixth season as a Phantoms player disrupted by a knee injury recently.

“Will is a great guy who always works as hard as he possibly can for the team,” stated Koulikov.

“He puts everything into every single shift and has the respect of his team-mates – that’s why I chose to make him captain.”

Weldon, who recently underwent an MRI scan in a bid to get to the bottom of a knee problem sustained in a Boxing Day triumph at Milton Keynes, is far from the only Phantoms player to have been troubled by injuries of late.

His fellow Nottingham-based forward Marc Levers made an earlier-than-expected return to action last Saturday after hernia surgery.

Levers was among the goalscorers in a 6-1 triumph against Guildford, but then sat out the Telford clash 24 hours later.

Defencemen Scott Robson and Ben Russell continue to be sidelined with concussion although the latter could be in contention to return this weekend.