Thirty players represented Exmouth Town in their Southern League campaign this season with Aarron Denny and Mike Landricombe missing just one game each, writes John Dibsdall.

Tom Bath finished the leading goal scorer with ten league goals, followed by Denny, Ace High and Ben Steer with seven. In all, twelve players were on the scoresheet, scoring 49 goals. In total, 67 goals were conceded with five clean sheets.

The 5-0 home victory over Larkhall Athletic was the highest win, whilst, ironically the 5-0 reverse at Larkhall was the heaviest defeat.

9,740 spectators attended Town’s games, 5,288 at home (avg 294) and 4,452 away (avg 247). 601 was the highest attendance away at Wimborne Town, whilst 464 were present at Yate Town. The highest attendance at home was 538 against Willand Rovers with 463 viewing the home encounter with Bideford.

Unfortunately, the Southern League website does not have all attendances recorded, ours only has thirteen games, so it is not possible to compare but our figures would compare favourably with the other Devon clubs.

Wimborne and Frome would be the highest, reflecting the success of their seasons but we would be in the top eight, which is testament to the effort and commitment of the team, despite results not necessarily going their way and the overall “matchday experience” provided by the club.

At the end of season presentation evening, Mike Landricombe received the Players’ Player of the season, having already won the Supporters’ Player of the season and Chris Wright received the Manager’s Player of the Season award.

With the intention to increase the number of teams in the league to 22, it is not clear what the structure of the league will be next season. The four clubs relegated from Premier South are Didcot Town, Harrow Borough, Hayes and Yeading and Beaconsfield Town. The Western League, Wessex League and Hellenic League will normally promote into the Southern League.

Worcester City have won the Hellenic and Cinderford Town have won the play off. Moneyfields (Portsmouth-based) have won the Wessex with Shaftesbury winning the play off and Helston Athletic winning the Western and Falmouth the play-off.

Wimborne are the champions of our league and Bristol Manor Farm and Frome will contest the play-off final to see who will also be promoted. If Paulton Rovers are relegated along with Hamworthy, who had resigned, then that would leave six places to be filled.

Geographically none of the relegated clubs are a natural fit. Helston, Falmouth and Shaftesbury would be shoe-ins, whilst Cinderford were relegated from the league last season.

Both Moneyfields and Worcester are on the furthest boundaries of our area and it will be interesting to see if there are movements from within the leagues e.g. Cirencester being moved sideways from Southern One Central to Southern One South.

The new League structure should be announced later in May.