Manager Steve Watt admitted to having mixed feelings as Margate’s Bostik Premier campaign ended with a 1-1 draw away to Dulwich Hamlet.

The result left the Gate seventh, two places outside of the play-offs, and Watt said while it was hard to fault the players’ resilience ultimately they had failed to do themselves justice.

The Blues boss, whose pre-season target had been a top 10 finish, said: “I’ll look back on the season with mixed emotions. There are a lot of positives, some things I’m very proud of and other things that I’m not.

“When you take everything into consideration, things like injuries, suspensions and having to play people out of position we did well to stay in the hunt as long as we did but there’s no point in trying to dress it up, missing out on the play-offs is a disappointment, particularly given the position we were in at one stage.”

Only champions Billericay and runners-up Dulwich lost fewer games than Gate’s nine but Watt’s side had 17 draws, more than any other team in the division.

He added: “We only lost nine times and I’d be surprised if there was another team who’s only lost nine games and who wasn’t in the play-offs.

“If you look our results against the top eight, we only lost two (to Billericay and Folkestone) so that suggests we have a squad capable of matching the best sides.

“It was our results against teams lower in the table which weren’t always as good and without all the draws we would have been pushing for the title, never mind the play-offs.

“But the bottom line is that we’ve not achieved what we should have done, the boys were told at the start of the season that if we did what we’re capable of it could be a special season. Unfortunately it has ended in disappointment.”

Watt said he didn’t feel some of Margate’s performances had been rewarded with the results they deserved in the closing weeks and the Dulwich game was another prime example.

Centre-half George Essuman headed in a Frannie Collin set piece to give the Blues a 65th minute lead only for Michael Chambers to equalise with 10 minutes to play.

The Gate were denied a penalty when Sid Sollis was taken out by the home keeper and Watt said that was typical of their luck in the final weeks of the campaign.

He added: “Sid lifts the ball over the keeper who then cleans him up. The ball’s rolling in and it gets cleared. Had Sid not been fouled he would have been able to tap it home, but there’s loads of things like that I can look back on in the past few weeks.”

Watt was due to attend a board meeting on Tuesday at which the club’s plans for next season are likely to be discussed.