West Auckland Town and Shildon ready for play-off showdown

Gareth Young is determined to round off an impressive first season in charge of West Auckland Town by guiding the club into the Northern Premier League.

After an impressive short-term interim reign, Young took permanent charge ahead of last summer and has quickly put his own stamp on the squad he inherited. A fourth placed finish during the regular season provided the club with their highest league finish since 2013 and set up a play-off semi-final visit to Whitley Bay last weekend.

Goals from Craig Moody, Finley O’Gorman and Alfie Steel ensured a first play-off final since a 3-0 defeat at Heaton Stannington in 2024 was secured – and Young is determined to go one better when his side head to Shildon on Saturday afternoon.

Hungry

He told The NLP: “I was there at the Heaton Stannington game and it was a good game of football where they did what they had to do.  Shildon have put their squad together, they’ve had a similar squad for a number of years and have added little bits to it – and that is my plan for West.

“We want to build a squad and they have done really well with that so they deserve to be where they have been. My lads are hungry, we want to get one over on them and get promoted.  Me and my coaches want to get over the line and it would be great to achieve that during my first season.  We wanted to be in and around the play-offs – so to be in the final is surreal but we still have a job to do and we know the lads will turn up and put in a performance just like they did against Whitley Bay.”

Thriving

Shildon striker Adam Lennox has already had a taste of Northern Premier League football after spending time with Consett earlier in his career.

The former Seaham Red Star frontman believes the current Railwaymen squad is more than capable of thriving at a higher level – but insisted they can not afford to take anything for granted ahead of Saturday’s meeting with West Auckland.

He said: “I think we have got a good, healthy, high quality squad and a lot of our players could go into the higher leagues. We’ve had good results against Stockton, Hebburn and other sides like them in previous seasons and we have come through those games no bother. We wouldn’t have any issues with that but we know we can’t look beyond the final.”