I was intrigued by the throwaway line in your Comet story this week, which quoted comments by Graham Westley on the Boro website. He said Boro had paid the price for being in last year s play-off final... No explanation. What price was this, then? Getting

I was intrigued by the throwaway line in your Comet story this week, which quoted comments by Graham Westley on the Boro website.

He said Boro had paid the price for being in last year's play-off final...

No explanation.

What price was this, then? Getting so close to the big prize last year, disappointing as it was, should have been the platform to go one better this season, not one place and several points worse.

His pre-season boast about Boro winning the title was typical Westley, really. All bluster and hollow promises. Boro were never really at the races.

A club like Stevenage should be in the play-offs every year they remain in the Conference.

A shot in the league is long overdue, even if staying there promises to be an even bigger battle - just look at the struggles of Barnet and Rushden and Diamonds this year.

Sadly the men who played at Boro the other night against an Arsenal XI were cheated out of their opportunity - though it is the fans whose long-standing loyalty and patience through some pretty unremarkable years of late most deserves the reward denied the club 10 years ago.

They have been poorly served by Westley this season. Not just in deeds but in barely comprehensible words, too...

PAUL FRY, Auckland, New Zealand