CHAIRMAN Toby Macormac says Warrington Town’s play-off final defeat has left him feeling “utterly flat.”

However, he says he still views the 2021-22 season as a success for Yellows despite their second agonising near miss in as many completed seasons.

Town were beaten 2-1 by Scarborough Athletic in Monday’s final, with the Seadogs promoted to the National League North as a result.

With the game finely poised at 1-1 in the second half, Warrington were reduced to 10 men when Mitch Duggan was controversially shown a straight red card for a challenge on Ashley Jackson.

That put them on the back foot and they eventually succumbed to Bailey Gooda’s winning goal 10 minutes from time.

“I feel utterly flat,” Macormac said.

“On the day, I think we could say we were hard done to. The referee’s performance – I think poor is an understatement.

“You could see the crowd wanting a red card but my view is that if there were 50 people in that stand in front of it, he books him.

“He’s bowed to a bit of pressure there and unfortunately, it’s changed the course of the game for us at a time where I thought we were on top in the second half.

“We’d scored the goal which was ruled out for offside, which is fine because it was, and we’d got a foothold in the game but it pegged us back.

“Unfortunately from then on, we weren’t able to create a great deal.”

Town have now reached the play-offs in the last three completed seasons without success as they fell at the final hurdle again three years after losing a one-off ‘super play-off’ against King’s Lynn Town.

For a club that is still recovering from being devastated by the pandemic, however, Macormac insists they have done magnificently to get this far.

The chairman also hopes to have answered what he feels has been “unjust” criticism of his club.

“I see it as a success,” he said, reflecting on the season.

“I’m always public with what I think we’ll do and I always try to deliver on what I promise in pre-season.

“I did say it would be tough post-Covid but that upper mid-table was doable and if we got into fifth, let’s see how things went.

“To get to where we’ve got to, we’ve done better than we thought we would. Beating South Shields in a semi-final is an achievement in itself.

“The club has had some criticism for things on and off the field which I think has been unjust, but I’d like to think we’ve righted that with performances during the run-in.”