Richard Wilkins begins rebuild at Stowmarket Town with additions of AFC Sudbury trio Jack Ladbrook, Dylan Kirk and Brad Byrne

“This could be the best thing I have ever done in 23 years of non-league football”.

Those are big words from Richard Wilkins for whom a rebuild at Stowmarket Town with a budget ‘around 40 per cent less’ than the riches they enjoyed last season is seen as the ultimate challenge to sign off his time in the dugout.

His appointment to the hot seat at Greens Meadow, in the wake of short lived player-boss Chris Casement deciding management had not come at the right time for him, will have undoubtedly raised eyebrows.

Why would Bury Town’s most successful ever manager choose what many outside observers see as a sinking ship to be his final voyage before keeping his promise to his wife to step away at 60?

Well, quite simply, the former Leiston and Needham Market boss, who has spent the last three seasons as a wise head assisting Paul Musgrove and then managerial rookie Casement, with an interim spell in charge inbetween at Stow, wants to leave his legacy to the club he has quickly grown an attachment to.

mpu1

“It is a challenge that probably only I can take, if I’m honest,” he told SuffolkNews and the Bury Free Press.

“I do not know if anyone else would be able to do it in a funny way.

“I just felt it’s a good club with a lot of good people.

“I’ve seen it happen before at clubs where the money disappears and everyone disappears and I just felt it needed somebody to just rebuild it who is up to the challenge, which I know it’s going to be.

“But it’s important Stow keep their Step 4 status, and I know with the people I’ve spoken to and the sort of players potentially coming through the door I think we can more than hold our own.”

With local donor Tom Morley having cut ties with the club over a disagreement with the club’s hierarchy, there has been a flood of big name exits following players’ existing well paid contracts running out.

But with Wilkins admitting only ‘five or six’ remained who played for the first team last season, this week has seen the former Colchester United professional’s rebuild begin.

Three of AFC Sudbury’s graduating academy players have been signed up to become his first signings of a new era.

mpu2

Jack Ladbrook was Sudbury’s highly-rated under-18s captain with the 6ft-plus player marshalling their defence to overcome Needham Market at Colchester United recently to lift a seventh straight Suffolk Under-18s Midweek Cup for the Yellows.

Wilkins has even compared him to a ‘young Tom Bullard’ in reference to the club’s recently departed captain who had so much success with him as his skipper at Bury Town before he took him over to Leiston.

Right winger Dylan Kirk, described as ‘a real pace merchant who’s got an end product and scores goals’ was handed his Step 4 debut in play-off winning AFC Sudbury’s last game of the regular season as a starter, having also represented them in the FA Cup win at Bury Town in August.

The trio is completed by Ladbrook’s centre-half partner Brad Byrne, who also made his Step 4 bow as a starter in the 2-1 defeat at Great Wakering Rovers.

“He’s a very good player, Danny Laws (head of football) rates him very highly,” said Wilkins.

The Stow boss is continuing to talk with a few remaining members of the existing squad yet to commit, but he will now be looking for a new goalkeeper after fans’ favourite James Bradbrook announced his departure last night.

Meanwhile, summer restoration work on the Greens Meadow pitch means that no pre-season friendlies will be staged on home turf until July 22, with the club yet to confirm their schedule.

Their Pitching In Isthmian League North Division season will kick off on August 12.