Ilford finished their season on Saturday, but manager Allan Fenn is laying the groundwork to ensure the Foxes are ready to challenge for honours when the new campaign begins in August.

The Cricklefield club ended the Essex Senior League season in ninth, but with teams below them still catching up on fixtures they could yet narrowly miss out on a top-half finish.

Fenn has recently taken over the running of the Ilford Sport & Social Club and hopes that this can also help the Foxes grow.

“My focus is on running the social club at the minute. We’re looking at turning it into a proper business. Hopefully then that can give the football team a budget,” said Fenn.

“We made a good fist of it this season, but as you can see in the table the teams at the top all have a budget.

“We’ve got some nice pre-season games already lined up. We need to be more consistent and harder to beat. We want to challenge for the top four and the cups. The future looks bright.”

Ilford ended the campaign with a 1-1 draw away at Hullbridge Sports, who are on course to finish fourth.

Carl Mullings equalised in the 55th minute for the Foxes to rescue a point and ensure the team finished on a positive note and left Fenn pleased with how his first year in charge had gone.

“I’m delighted with how things went. When I came in at the start the club was in a bad place,” he added.

“We’ve been inconsistent, but we knew the season was always going to be a complete rebuild of the club. The work we’re doing is all going to filter down through the teams. Even Barkingside will benefit next season.

“It’s been frustrating at times, but we wanted to get a core of 12-15 players who would be here for pre-season. We’ve got that, so all we need now is four or five players of quality so we can hit the ground running.”