Liversedge were pleased to settle for fourth from bottom of the Kool Sport Northern Counties East League Premier Division at the end of a season that saw more tidal shifts than a lunar cycle.

Sedge were looking in one direction only last May, and that was forward after Sean Regan had consolidated the Spen club.

They ended the 2009-10 season in ninth place, which, after trying times, had pleased everyone except Regan, who had targeted the top eight and qualification for the league’s President's Cup.

In the close season, Regan was offered a full-time coaching role at Scunthorpe United’s Academy, and departed.

His assistant Billy Miller also left as he felt it would not be right for him to step into the shoes of his close friend.

Liversedge appointed Stewart Waddington, and he had a hurried pre-season campaign.

The new man had a big task ahead as many of the players had either been tempted away or looked for pastures new after Regan and Miller had resigned.

The fortunes of the hastily-assembled replacement squad lurched from one crisis to another and, just as the brutally harsh winter began to bite, Waddington was on his way from Clayborn.

Chairman and former manager Steve Newton took caretaker charge late in November.

The surprise full-time replacement was Miller but he was initially hindered by the unusually high number of postponements as football almost went into a deep freeze for a month.

Miller had a tough job ahead of him as Sedge were rooted in the relegation zone.

Some of the former players started to return and Sedge became difficult to beat, although a lot of draws followed, the one-point returns were not improving their prospects of staying up.

Fortunately there were enough games left, most of them re-arranged ones, for Miller to pull off the great escape.

Sedge finished five points above the drop zone in the final analysis and reached the quarter-finals of the League Cup.

But there is still room for improvement as Sedge won just seven of their 38 league games and ended with a minus-24 goal difference, but with their Premier Division status intact.