WILL Richards’ decision to head down south with Chippenham Town has paid off handsomely, with the defender picking up a host of individual awards to go along the prize of a Southern League championship medal.

Richards began his career at Shrewsbury Town and has been largely based in the Midlands, playing for the likes of AFC Telford and Solihull Moors and was most recently at Redditch United before signing for the Bluebirds last summer.

That move could not have worked out better, with Richards a key part of the Chippenham side that won promotion to the National League and his contribution was rewarded by being named player of the season by both manager Mark Collier and the Town supporters at the club’s end-of-season presentation evening.

“I saw that they’d managed to get Andy Sandell to stay and had brought in Dave Pratt, so it looked like an exciting place to come,” said Richards, who is one of six members of the title-winning squad to have already signed new contracts for next season.

“When I spoke to the manager, I knew I could add something to the team and it turned out to be a great decision and a great season.

“It was good to get a few awards, I haven’t had anything at end-of-season events for a couple of years now.

“It was a good season to get it, especially beating two strikers in Andy and Dave who have got 30-odd goals each.”

Chippenham’s championship success was built on their incredible 23-match unbeaten streak in the league that started on December 6 and lasted until they were finally beaten on April 15.

Six of those first seven matches ended in draws, with the Bluebirds shipping 13 goals in that time, but a change in tactics meant their net was breached just nine more times in the next 16 games.

“We were quite open and we scored a lot of goals but it was a bit ropey to start with and we managed to be on the right end of some high-scoring games,” added Richards.

“Then the manager changed things and we had two holding players in midfield and we went a bit tighter and that obviously paid off.”