In a move that we feel will please Bucks supporters, we can confirm that defender Orrin Pendley will extend his stay at the New Buck’s Head into the 2024/25 season.
Orrin was a multiple winner at our 2023/24 season awards and has agreed terms to remain with the club, making him the seventh player from last season’s squad retained by manager Kevin Wilkin.
The central defender was a huge hit with supporters, management and colleagues alike in the 2023/24 season, winning awards as Player of the Season from all three groups.
Orrin contributed to the club’s excellent defensive record; not only that, he weighed in with some valuable goals, his presence at set-pieces giving the Bucks an additional threat in the opposition’s penalty area.
Orrin is a man who usually prefers his game to do the talking, and when his game speaks as loudly as it does, who needs words? Nonetheless, he was happy to share a few thoughts on his return, and as far as he was concerned, there wasn’t too much thinking to be done about where he wanted to play his football in the coming season:
“It was an easy decision. It’s a well-run club, I get on with everybody and the thing I like most is the environment of the place, so it wasn’t that hard for me to decide.”
Last season’s play-off final misfire hasn’t entirely been forgotten, and Orrin admitted that he’d be aiming to use the disappointment of the day as motivation:
“Yeah, you’re just so close to it, so I’ll be using that as fuel and I think some of the boys will be using that as fuel too.”
Kevin Wilkin made retaining Orrin a high priority, aware that his performances for the Bucks would have alerted other clubs to his qualities, and putting him on several clubs’ wish lists.
The Bucks manager was therefore delighted that Orrin felt his future was in Bucks’ colours:
“I think you look at the character he’s shown through last season and how he developed in his game. He keeps making progress and won the awards last season and deservedly so. There’s a lot of people there that could make a case they deserve some, but he’s the one that’s gone and taken them. Naturally, we’re delighted to get him back on board and hopefully, he’ll play at the same level that he played most of last season.”
Orrin’s desire to keep developing and progressing his game, and the fact he sees the Bucks as the place to continue doing that, is a vote of confidence in what Kevin has built at the club:
“Yeah, I hope so. I don’t know his whole history, but I would say probably last season would have been as consistent a season as he’s probably had in football, and I think he’s still improving. Orrin understands his game; he looks after himself really well and continues to push himself and we need people like that in the group.”
Welcome back, Orrin!
