Welling manager Steve King was furious that his team were not awarded a penalty in the second half at Woking.

The Wings lost their National League play-off final 1-0 on Sunday but King believed they should have won a spot-kick midway through the second half when substitute Nassim L’Ghoul went down in the box.

“That decision at the end is an absolute joke,” claimed King. “Nass slipped on the first bit, then he got up and flicked it past the full-back who has taken him clean out.

“Everyone in the ground saw it was a penalty. Their assistant manager shook my hand at the end and said it was a penalty.

“I don’t get how he can’t see it. It’s a massive decision in the game, it wasn’t even a hard decision.

“I just look back and I’m disappointed that the referee hasn’t got that right. We’re not clutching at straws, it was a stonewall penalty and that could be the difference between drawing the game and maybe going on to win the game.

“That’s a blatant penalty and to think we’ve lost a competition on the referee not being adequate enough…tell me if I’m wrong, everyone can see it was a penalty on Nassim so it hurts to go out now.”

King’s mood was not brightened after he made a brief visit to the changing rooms following the full-time whistle.

“I put my head in the dressing room at the end of it and they were all laughing In there, I think that’s poor officiating,” added King.

“I just said ‘you don’t realise this is our living and you’re laughing at things like that’.

“I don’t know what he is thinking. He is 10 yards from it, how has he not seen that? I don’t get it.

“I was on the pitch, that’s how irate I was with it.”

• Woking 1 Welling - read our match report here

King praised Woking’s goal, a brilliantly taken free-kick from Armani Little just before half-time.

“There was nothing in the game,” he said. “They got a free-kick – was it a free-kick? I don’t know but he put it away with aplomb.

“It was a massive wall to get up and over, sometimes you have to appreciate the quality of the execution.

“We were all over them in the second half, especially in the last 20 minutes and they just tried to hit us on the counter attack.

“Their system was almost 4-5-1 at home, they had everyone behind the ball and that shows the respect they had for us.

“We had loads of opportunities (putting balls) into the box and didn’t quite get on the end of things. We just couldn’t get that final bit of quality.”

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