Just over two weeks since Wanderers secured another year of Championship football with a high-octane final day victory against Nottingham Forest at Macron Stadium, academy graduate Josh Vela spoke to bwfc.co.uk about the feeling of avoiding the drop to Sky Bet League One.
“It means a lot to everybody,” he said. “We needed to stay in this division, we didn’t want to go back down to League One. Hopefully now, we can build on staying up and push on again next season.”
Under no illusions as to what next season holds, Vela acknowledged that survival could and probably should have been secured earlier than it was, but believes that the experiences gained from the dramatic scenario on May 6 can stand the team in good stead for what lies ahead in the 2018/19 campaign.
“It’s going to be tough again next season, but we’ve got the experience from this season and should have really stayed up comfortably in the end.
“We never make things easy for ourselves, but you can’t beat the feeling of staying up on the last day of the season.”
Wanderers’ relegation to Sky Bet League One in 2016 meant a first appearance in the third tier of English football since 1993, but quick to bounce back under manager Phil Parkinson, the 24 year-old midfielder says the team have made huge progress in the couple of years that have followed.
“We went down in 2015/16 which was a bad year for everyone, but obviously we then came back and got promoted and managed to stay in the Championship this year.
“This season is a massive improvement on our last season in the Championship and we’re hungry to kick on come August.”