COMMENT: Buckley-Ricketts loss a hammer blow on and off the pitch for Town

ISAAC Buckley-Ricketts’ decision to leave Warrington Town is a hammer blow in every possible respect.

The winger was not short of offers from both higher up and lower down the footballing pyramid, all of which would no doubt have dwarfed what Town were able to offer him financially, but he has ultimately decided Curzon Ashton is the best fit for him.

Simply passing it off as being purely for financial reasons would be unfair, however, given Buckley-Ricketts has had opportunities to leave Cantilever Park for lucrative deals elsewhere before now.

Only the player himself will know the reasons why but given Curzon are a club closer to his native Manchester and are a step-up in terms of available facilities, they are factors that would all have come into play.

From a Warrington Town perspective, however, the fact he has chosen to join a club they would expect to be battling with this season will sting in more ways than one.

On the field, Buckley-Ricketts was central to the way Mark Beesley’s team operate – no other player in the squad possesses his raw pace, which was a key weapon whether he operated through the middle or on the left flank.

And then, there’s his goal output – his 15 league goals was just under a quarter of their total and given skipper Josh Amis is unlikely to start the season having had shoulder surgery, it is a massive void to fill.

As everybody in football knows, however, goalscorers do not come cheap and it is no secret that, due to the financial resource that was needed to complete the necessary upgrades to their home ground, Beesley is operating on a reduced playing budget this season.

Put simply, they cannot throw the kind of money at players that rivals can so to replace players that leave, they will need to get creative.

The trouble with that is, as players start to get snapped up, they are running out of options and pretty soon, time will start to work against them.

In purely basic terms, the squad that finished last season is now five players worse off in terms of depth, with Buckley-Ricketts joining Sean Williams in leaving. Loanees Kacper Pasiek and Dubem Eze have returned to their parent clubs and as previously mentioned, Amis will miss the start of the season at least.

And that is without the uncertainty around defender Andre Wisdom, whose next move is still up in the air.

As he mentioned in his interview with the Guardian last week, Beesley will not panic for there is still time with pre-season having only just begun and he can point to some of Town’s best recent transfer business coming later on having been patient in waiting for "the right player" to become available.

However, the departure of their leading goalscorer will do nothing to allay concerns about how ready they will be for the new season when it kicks off on August 10 and puts more pressure on the need to bring in reinforcements.

Off the field too, at a time where the club are trying to sell season tickets, replica shirts and sponsorships to continue their existential growth, a player as valuable and popular as Buckley-Ricketts not being around will not help matters.

Could more have been done to tie him to an extended deal earlier? And with key assets such as Connor Woods and Matty McDonald about to enter the final year of their deals with the club, can lessons be learned from this?

Both valid questions with answers that will no doubt be complicated that are being mulled over by everyone at Cantilever Park right now.

What can be said for certain, though, is that the forward’s name will always be remembered at Warrington Town.

His dramatic, promotion-clinching goal in the 2023 play-off final victory over Bamber Bridge will sit proudly alongside Craig Robinson’s FA Cup winner against Exeter City as the most important in the club’s history and having been the man to get them to their new level, he played a key role in them staying there.

The name Isaac Buckley-Ricketts will always bring back positive memories for Town fans, but the shame will be that he did not want to create any more.