ALVECHURCH boss Ian Long has said he will sit down and talk with chairman Richard Thorndike to thrash out his future in the next seven days.

Long has had a fine first season at Lye Meadow, guiding them to second place in the Midlands Premier and breaking the 100-point barrier.

But Long admitted he was disappointed not to have won promotion to step four of the non-league after league giants Hereford pipped them to the league title with a massive 108-point haul.

Church also made the last 32 of the FA Vase, the furthest the club has ever reached in the competition, won the Worcestershire Senior Cup and were set to play Heath Hayes in the last four of the JW Hunt Cup on Tuesday night.

With managerial vacancies at Redditch and Rushall Olympic now available, Long’s success at Alvechurch may attract attention from clubs higher up.

He said: “I am set to talk to the chairman next week and talk about the plans for the future.

"I am ambitious and want to manage at a higher level and I'm disappointed not to have guided Alvechurch to promotion.

“The chairman Richard Thorndike has been absolutely brilliant with us and he’s given us we’ve asked for.

“He’s a great chairman to work for and I am sure we both have issues to discuss.”

Long also lamented his team’s inability to score penalties after missing out on the title by seven points.

He added: “If we had scored our penalties we’d have won the league.

“You’ve got to hand it to Hereford, once they got used to the division they really put some great runs together.

“Any other season that would have been enough to win the league and Hereford only really dropped a few points.

“I was disappointed in the cup competitions, we were knocked out early on in the FA Cup and while we reached the last 32 of the Vase, I felt we could have gone further.”