Tewkesbury Town manager James Coates has hailed his players after they were crowned Northern Senior League champions.

Goals by Jamie Goodwin and Scott Jordan earned them a 2-0 win over closest rivals Whaddon United and with it the Division One title.

“It’s absolutely brilliant, the players have been rewarded for all the hard work they have put in,” said Coates, who took over as manager at the start of December.

Tewkesbury won 28 and drew one of their 30 league games – they also won the Reg Davis Cup – but Coates reckons his team saved their best until last with that win over Whaddon.

A draw would have meant that Whaddon, who still have four games to play, could have overhauled Tewkesbury but Coates was confident that his team would get the job done.

“They were phenomenal, it was a massive performance, I think it was our best performance of the season,” he said.

“They were superb, the atmosphere before the game was different, they knew what they had to do.

“I didn’t really have to say anything before the game, there’s so many experienced lads in our side, I didn’t have a minute’s worry.

“I felt we were comfortable and to keep a clean sheet against Whaddon was great – to a man the players were excellent.”

Tewkesbury have scored 122 goals in the league this season and conceded just 23 but they’ve still got work to do because they now face a play-off to determine whether they will be playing in the County League next season.

That game will be played in mid-May at the GFA’s headquarters in Almondsbury – Tewkesbury don’t yet know their opponents – and Coates said: “We’ve still got one more massive game.

“Nobody can take our league win away but we want to be promoted too, our season is still to reach a conclusion.”

Coates has given the players the week off but they will be back in training next week when the preparations for the play-off will begin.

And when they do meet up again the spirit within the team will obviously be very good.

“What they’ve done, it’s a hell of an achievement, it’s pretty conclusive,” continued Coates. “The lads were saying that if they’d have won as many games last season they’d have won the title in February.”

That they didn’t is down to Whaddon, who suffered only their second defeat of the campaign at the weekend.

If they win their final four games they will finish just a point adrift of Tewkesbury and while Coates was delighted to finish on top he admitted there was some relief too.

“The lads have been under a lot of pressure for the past six or seven games since we drew with Bicknor,” he said.

“But we always knew that if we kept it in our own hands we’d be okay. I’m really pleased for Marc Lane and Stuart Bailey who do so much good work behind the scenes.”

And Tewkesbury can take comfort from the fact that last season’s Northern Senior League champions Chalford won promotion to the County League via the play-offs, which featured the champions of the Bristol and Suburban League and the Bristol Combination Premier League.