While Bartlett himself preferred to step back and let the players take the plaudits following Stones’ 1-0 win at Margate which sealed the crown with three games to spare, his skipper flagged up the skills of a man who transformed a team unfancied in pre-season after losing key characters from last term’s playoff defeat.
Shorn of the like of Lee Chappell, Chris O’Leary and Richard Jolly, Bartlett set out to rebuild, and what a rebuild it turned out to be.
Ex-Burnley and Reading winger Glen Little was persuaded to sign up, while Johnny Wright was found all the way up in Workington and Luke Pigden was summoned to the boiler room from Carshalton.
Gambles too were taken as Jerome Okimo was signed from Chalfont St Peter and charged with the task of filling the shoes of Chappell. He turned out to be a true diamond in the rough, becoming surely the best left back in the Ryman Premier League just as Chappell had been before him.
And of course there was Millwall loanee Charlie Penny, whose winner at Hartsdown Park proved priceless.
Parker insisted it was a task only someone with Bartlett’s skills could have pulled off.
He said: “I’ve worked under no-one better in terms of man management skills. If you have got the sort of talent there in the team all you have got to do is man manage them.
“Looking in pre-season people doubted us but Gordon gets in the right players. He is experienced and knows exactly who to bring in – personalities who are going to compliment the team.
“Year in year out Gordon proceeds to produce miracles and I have no doubt he will do it again. He is a remarkable father figure of this club.”
Judging by the reaction on the terraces on Tuesday night Stones’ loyal fans agree with their skipper’s sentiments.
Chants of ‘Gordon Bartlett’s blue and white army echoed out into a night sky illuminated by a blood red moon eclipse.
It reminded Parker of another occasion two years earlier when in the wake of gut wrenching playoff defeat to Lowestoft those same fans had belted out that very chorus at full volume for around half an hour outside the dressing-room of their defeated heroes.
And he was just glad two years on that footballing fortune had turned full circle and that faith had been rewarded.
He added: “We went back in the changing room that night lower than low having lost to a 96th minute penalty.
“So to come back out and they are still singing that is what the club is all about. Everyone is pulling in the right direction and there is such a close knit bond between everybody, players and fans included.
“We are in there having a great laugh with them right now, but that is how it is after every game. I could not be more pleased for them.
“Since they won the double in the 80s the lows they have had – those guys deserve it.”
