Margate boss Ben Greenhalgh faces a battle to keep his squad together after their play-off heartache this season.

Gate lost 2-0 to eventual winners Burgess Hill last week in the Isthmian South East play-off semi-final, a scoreline that didn’t reflect how well they played.

But that’s already in the past for Greenhalgh, who has started to get to work on retaining his squad from this season.

Captain Harry Hudson, talented midfielder Brandon Davey, fellow midfielder Max Walsh, centre-back Lewis Knight and winger Tushaun Walters have agreed to stay at Hartsdown Park next season while midfielder Sam Blackman rejoins following a loan stint from Folkestone. Young keepers Tom Wray and Reece Hobbs are also expected to remain.

It’s a positive start as clubs will circle in an attempt to lure players away after a successful campaign.

“My aim now is to try and keep everyone together,” said Greenhalgh. “But it’s always hard when you’ve been a good team and you don’t get promoted. Everyone above comes sniffing.

“If you’re a team that’s got in the play-offs and not got promoted, there’s players that wanted to get promoted for themselves, to be able to keep playing high levels, but also wanted to get promoted with the club.

"I’m trying to push into the group that we owe the club something, where we have fallen short. We played a good game at Burgess Hill and it could have gone differently but I feel like we owe the club something to go again.

“I found myself at a club that I’m obviously a massive part of, and they’ve welcomed me into it. I’m trying to portray that across to the whole squad, where this is a club that looks after you.

“I get along with everyone at the club really well. It's a case of trying to not sell that to them, I think they've seen it. But I'm trying to just get them to understand that this could be the right thing to go again.

“If we do stick together, then we’re going to be brilliant. Obviously, we’re going to have to always look to add as well, to try and make us even stronger next year.”

Greenhalgh knows that it’s going to be another big challenge next season with Faversham Town coming up and the likes of Hastings being relegated.

“We’ve also lost a consistently good team in the league in Ramsgate,” said 33-year-old Greenhalgh. “We’re gaining some big clubs coming down, so it’ll be interesting to see how they fare next season, like Hastings and Bognor.

“Then you’ve got to look at Faversham coming up, who are a very big club and who are giving things a go as well. Tommy Warrilow down there is a very experienced manager.

“The league’s not going to get any easier, because it’s so hard at this level where you’ve got such big clubs that have to come first. Then if you don’t come first, you rock up on a Tuesday night like we have done in the play-offs and it's a lottery game in some ways if the luck falls your way or not.”