Walsham-le-Willows secure leading goalscorer Reon Huckvale to contract for 2025/26 Thurlow Nunn League Premier Division season

Having seen one of their talented players move on this summer, Walsham-le-Willows have acted decisively to secure the services of another of their promising crop of youngsters.

Late last month it was confirmed that Ethan Garcia – a scorer of 35 goals across the past two seasons – had been snapped up by higher-league outfit Felixstowe & Walton United.

And there has also been ‘a lot of interest’ in Reon Huckvale, who despite not always being an automatic starter, finished as the leading scorer of a Walsham squad that reached the final of the Thurlow Nunn League Premier Division play-offs last term.

But despite potential suitors making their pitch, Huckvale has instead committed his future to Walsham by agreeing a contract for the 2025/26 campaign.

Joint boss Ian Hubbard said: “There has been a lot of interest in Reon. When you’ve got a young lad scoring plenty of goals, there’s always going to be interest.

“He finished the season really well in particular and that also sticks in the mind of people when they’re looking at who they want to sign.

“We had a good season. We finished fifth overall and so it’s no surprise other clubs are looking at our players because we’ve got a decent squad.

“But what the contract does with Reon is give us both a bit more security. We know that he’s going to be with us next season and he can now concentrate on continuing to improve the way he has been.”

Huckvale and his Walsham team-mates are set to start pre-season training the week commencing June 23.

And while Hubbard is expecting to add one or two fresh faces to the squad before the new season starts, he and fellow boss Chay Budd are intending to keep faith with the majority of the group that went so close to achieving an historic promotion.

He added: “There are one or two lads who are coming over for pre-season that we think would help us to improve. But we’re in a healthy place and the squad has a good number already.

“Charlie Norman is coming back into training, which is a big thing for us, and I’d say we’re probably looking at a group of around 20 players at the moment – so there’s a lot of competition.

“The lads did so well for us last season.

“They were brilliant, we came fifth and had a great run in the FA Vase so they deserve our faith for next season as well.”