Alex Hoping Life’s Gud For The Moors This Time Around

The defender wasn’t only part of the team who defeated Chesterfield last weekend, he scored to help turn the semi-final tie around.

He will be going all out to ensure it’s Solihull who are heading up on Sunday.

If they do it will be the club’s first ever season in the EFL.

Formed in 2007 after a merger of Moor Green and Solihull Borough, they aren’t planning on hanging around any longer.

But Gudger knows what it feels like to play for the club and suffer agony in the play-offs.

Going down to a semi-final defeat to AFC Fylde, thanks to a Danny Philliskirk winner in May 2019, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

Speaking in a special feature for the National League Promotion Final programme, he said: “It’s always tough when you lose games of football, but it’s even tougher in the play-offs.

“The ‘what ifs’ just stay with you, they fill your head for a while.

“It’s part of the script, it’s part of football - sometimes you don’t win the games you really want to.

“We need to work so hard to be on the winning side next week. It’s not a good feeling when you aren’t in these matches.”

But he warned: “We know how good Grimsby are.

“They have won some big matches and our great results against them this season will count for nothing come Sunday, we know that.

“Everyone that has gone on before and all other kind of stuff goes straight out of the window in these one-off games.”

Read the full interview in the 2022 Vanarama National League Promotion Final official matchday programme - available here.