Peterborough Sports are the envy of the Southern League and they’re confident they will push for honours again next season

The city side were in the thick of the title race in the Premier Central Division when time was called on the campaign.

It was Sports’ first season at step three level and with an improved squad and greater knowledge of the division, Dean is confident his side will be among the title challengers again.

Star forwards Dion Sembie-Ferris and Maniche Sani are already tied to the Bee Arena by contracts, as is Dean, and the boss is confident the rest of his successful squad will still be around.

He also has his eye on a couple of additions.

“Adding a couple of players each season is how we’ve worked in recent years,” Dean said.

“But we will still have the players from last year and now we’ve seen what the division is all about I’m confident we will be up there again.

“My assessment of last season would be we started a bit fearful, but once we realised we could compete and win games we were very good.

“There certainly wasn’t a team we couldn’t beat.

“Royston were the best side in my opinion last season.

“They battered us 3-0, but we had a few missing and we were due to play them at home on the final day of the season when we would have given them a much better game.

“We improved against everyone else.

“We lost badly at Tamworth, but then beat them 4-2 at home when it could have been 10-2.

“We won 6-1 at Stourbridge and 3-0 at Nuneaton and they are big clubs at our level so we have every right to be confident next season as we know there is nothing to be afraid of.

“Every other team wants what we’ve got and that’s a real tight-knit squad.

“It hasn’t just happened either. It’s been five years in the making, but the lads are really close and that definitely helps when the going gets tough.”

Sports were top of the table when the Southern League came to an abrupt halt because of the coronavirus crisis in March, but closest rivals Tamworth and Royston both had three matches in hand.

Clubs have not yet been told when they will be allowed to start pre-season training and also have no idea when the 2020-21 season will start.