DANNY Scopes has spoken of his pride after another impressive season for Aveley.

The Millers saw their hopes of a third successive promotion ended by a 2-1 defeat at Maidstone United in the National League South play-offs.

But Scopes remains impressed by how well his players have performed.

“I’m super proud,” said the Eastwood based Scopes told the club's website.

“I’m hurting and the group of players are too but when we look at it in the cold light of day we can be really proud.

“Lots of people wrote us off and said we would get relegated.

“But this should let us build again now and it’s important we do that.

“We can’t just accept it because if you take your foot off the gas this division will eat you up.

“It’s important to try and improve and I’ll be hungry for that.”

Aveley won back to back promotions before finishing seventh in their first ever season at this level.

And Scopes was proud of how hard his side fought against Maidstone.

“We were really happy to get in 1-0 up at half-time,” said Scopes.

“It was important to try and be brave in the second half but I didn’t feel we could quite do that.

“Credit to Maidstone but we got a bit deeper into our box and had to defend it a bit more.

“They’re bringing on top players and it was always going to be challenging for us.

“I just felt if we could get through those last few minutes and get to extra time we could regroup and change a couple of things.

“But I’m super proud of the effort of the group.

“We always knew it was going to be tough but, like we have all season, we stayed in the fight and took it to them.”

And Aveley did that despite their unique preparations.

“It’s not an excuse but Maidstone were probably in the Monday and Tuesday in terms of their preparation,” said Scopes.

“It’s not excuse but that’s the fortunate part of being full-time.

“We had boys leaving work early and working their lunch-breaks to get there so we have to put that it into context too.”