Shropshire Star

Bucks revelation who created "special moments" is staying put

AFC Telford United have announced that star midfielder Remi Walker has agreed terms to remain at the club for the 2024/25 season.

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The 21-year-old had a fantastic first year with the Bucks following his release from Birmingham City’s academy, contributing to more than a dozen goals in the Southern Central Premier.

As expected, interest in the playmaker was high following the end of the season, but Walker has opted to remain with Telford as they hunt for promotion at the second time of asking.

Boss Kevin Wilkin said: “Once Remi settled into the group and started playing regularly, there was a real consistency about his form.

“Remi remains at the sort of age where hopefully he will continue developing to the level that I think he hoped to get to (in the past) and probably will still get to; it’s just that he’s taking another avenue, coming out of full-time football, but certainly, he understood that, and he developed physically and mentally within the game.”

Wilkin added: “Hopefully, that’s a curve that Remi can continue to move forward on, and we get some more fantastic games and goals out of him.”

After marking his Telford debut with a goal against Royston Town, Walker suffered an injury that kept him out of the side during the Bucks’ difficult start to the season. However, Walker’s return to fitness and form coincided with Kevin Wilkin’s side finding a rich vein of form, and the young midfielder cemented himself as one of the stand-out performers.

And Wilkin is hoping that the former Birmingham Under-21s playmaker can help his side go one better in the Southern Central Premier next time around.

“On reflection, I think when we look at it and think, then Remi should perhaps have stepped into senior football a little bit sooner, although he’d had some experience of men’s football before coming to us,” the Telford boss said. “Sometimes young men aren’t as physically capable of doing it.”

“Still it certainly makes you stand up and be counted when you have to go toe-to-toe in a physical league and a strong league, and it makes you grow up all the more quickly, and hopefully, It’ll be the making of Remi.

“However, he already came up with some real special moments last season, I hope he’ll be able to do so again.”