Clive Cook is taking the blame for Hythe’s failure to make the play-offs but insists Town would have gone close to the title if they could have kept Alfie May this season.

May departed for Doncaster in January after 49 goals in 67 games for the Cannons and while Cook says he regrets nothing and ‘wouldn’t change a thing’ about May’s move, he said: “I think he would have scored 50 goals this season if he had stayed.

“If I’m honest, I didn’t think him going would hurt us to the extent it did. I think we’d have gone very close to the title but we’d have definitely been in the play-offs – 100%.”

May has scored two in 14 appearances for promoted League 2 side Rovers and Cook said: “I promised him I’d get him his move though, every game he was coming off asking ‘was anyone watching’ – it’s the one thing this season that I can look back and be proud of. Look at him now.

“I keep in touch with him, we talk most days, he messaged me after we lost on Saturday saying he was gutted for us.”

Town lost 1-0 at title-chasing Dorking but bounced back with a 6-1 romp at home to Chatham on Monday ahead of the final match at Horsham on Saturday.

Cook said: “I was more annoyed about Saturday than I was happy about Monday. They weren’t in the game at all but they got a ragged goal in the 86th minute and that’s it. It’s the story of our season.

“Their manager said to me after ‘how did you not win that?’” Hythe can finish as the top Kent side in the table and Cook said: “We want to finish the season the right way. The boys are disappointed they have not fulfilled their potential – we have not played to the level we know we are capable of.

“I am disappointed in myself, you can say what you like about the players doing it out on the pitch but ultimately it’s down to me. I have to be better, too.

“This season was an accumulation of things, though we were certainly not good enough under pressure.

“We had four or five chances to cement our place (near the top) and really push on but we bottled it."

FULL STORY IN THIS WEEK'S FOLKESTONE AND HYTHE EXPRESS