The Players Were Fantastic!
(The above logo is being used for the last time!)
United defender Lee Mansell spoke straight after the final whistle as the celebrations began in the Gulls' changing room. Lee was with United during the dark times of relegation out of League 2 and spoke of his love of the club: 'This is why we play football at the end of the day. These are the moments you live for, this is a fantastic day.When the club went of the League it was probably the darkest day of my career so this is all the more sweeter now. I love this club and I'm so proud to have helped get it back to where it belongs.
'Cambridge had plenty of possession but we were quite comfortable in soaking it up. Defensively as a unit we did very well. We have a fantastic squad here and today everyone played their part, this lad here did his bit (interview interrupted by a screaming Elliot Benyon!) and as a team we played well for the whole ninety minutes.
'We scored two fantastic goals. Chris (Hargreaves) hit a great shot for the first and Wayno (Wayne Carlisle) struck a superb cross for Tim's goal, it couldn't have gone any better.
'It's been an amazing day. I'll definitely be having a drink tonight!'
Paul Buckle stressed after United's 2-0 play-off victory over Cambridge United how prepared his team were leading up to the match: 'All week the players had given me great encouragement that this was going to be our day. They way they have conducted themselves, the way they have approached training and their focus has been on getting promoted really since the two games against Histon. You saw in our muted celebration that we knew the job wasn't done and I think that served us well.
'We scored two classic goals. Chris Hargreaves has worked tirelessly for me for two seasons and he capped it off today with a great strike and for the second goal as soon as I saw Wayne cross the ball the way he did I knew it was going in the back of the net. Tim Sills has been different class and it was a goalscorer's finish.
'It has been a massive two years at the club and I have learned a lot. We had no right to do what we did last season. We went into the Blue Square and everyone is saying that we should go straight back up but it wasn't a League club that I took over. It was a non-league football club and it was in a mess. We had three players and we then went and brought people like Tim Sills and Chris Hargreaves in over a short period of six or seven weeks which wasn't easy. We then got off to a fantastic start with some good cup runs but we ended up with nothing which was seen as failure and we had to deal with that. We didn't start great this time around but we then saw what people are made of. I always believed that if you put hard work in and you get good people in at the football club you will always have a chance. We have done that, we have gone up and the one thing now that the club must do is make sure that they never go back into non-league. They must protect it with their lives because it is the most difficult league to get out of.
'The players were fantastic and we thoroughly deserve to be in the Football League.'
Tim Sills explained the build-up to his goal: 'It was quite lucky actually because I was late coming into the build-up. I think Elliot and Danny were already in the box and it was just a case of shouting to Wayne and he picked me out. I didn't have to break stride, it was the cross that you dream of in any game but to have it at Wembley in the play-off final to virtually kill the game off is more than I could have dreamed off to be honest.'
