Halstead Town manager Mark Benterman is keen to continue building the team spirit that his squad have had this season as they head into their summer break.

The Humbugs’ season finished with them falling just short of claiming one of Thurlow Nunn League division one’s three promotion places, but that should take nothing away from what has been a superb campaign at Rosemary Lane.

They lost their final game 1-0 at Ely City on Saturday, but even if they’d won, Halstead would have been denied a top-three finish as Great Yarmouth Town beat Team Bury to secure their berth in the premier division.

Benterman admitted there was disappointment over the loss at Ely as he felt his team deserved more from their trip, but he has been heartened with how they have developed a close bond this year in winning 15 of their last 18 league games. And he now wants to build that team spirit more ahead of a promotion push next season.

He said: “The boys are buzzing still and no-one wanted the season to finish.

“However, we need to recover now to make sure we’re ready when we come back to training on June 28.

“Every player will be given a programme over the summer to make sure they can hit the ground running in pre-season and are even better prepared than last year.

“We’ll also have a number of get-togethers over the summer to keep the team spirit going as it’s really special what we’ve got and it’s important to jump on that.

“There was a close bond in the squad in my first year at the club, but the togetherness that is there now is phenomenal.

“It’s the best that I’ve ever come across and everyone has bought into what we’re trying to do. That counts for the fans as well as they have been tremendous. I just want to thank our fans who have come along to watch us this season; we really do appreciate it.”

Benterman said he was disappointed to end such a good season with a defeat, but he was also proud of his team as he had to make a number of changes for the finale due to injuries and unavailability.

He added: “We were quite disappointed as we didn’t deserve that result.

“We should have been three or four up by the time they scored, which is amazing as Ely were second and we had a lot of players playing out of position due to others being unavailable.

“It was a whole team performance and I couldn’t have been prouder of them.

“If we can all stay together, then the future is looking very bright.”

Benterman, who has already confirmed his place as Halstead boss for next year said he expected the majority of his squad to remain, but one player who is leaving is goalkeeper Thomas Spenser.

The Town boss said he will have James Waters coming back after a knee injury, though, and is also seeing plenty of interest from players wanting to join.

He said: “My phone has been red hit since Saturday with people wanting to come.

“People have seen what we’ve done and what we’ve got at the club and they want to get involved so we’ll have a few trialists with us in pre-season.”