She has been thinking about it for five months. Now she has forty-eight hours.

The Bobington Rovers board, chaired by Conrad Vickers, voted unanimously on Wednesday evening to offer Phillipa Corbett a two-year contract extension through the end of the 2027-28 season. The terms, this newspaper understands, are significantly improved on her current arrangement and include provisions for squad development — a modest transfer budget and investment in the youth academy.

Corbett did not accept on the spot.

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it for five months.”

There was, briefly, laughter. Then she left the boardroom.

It is worth remembering what those five months have contained. In December, sections of this city’s support base were calling for her dismissal after a run of four consecutive league defeats. In January, she was preparing a squad ravaged by injuries — Blackshaw’s knee, Osei’s hamstring, Harwick learning on the job — for a Merchants’ Cup quarter-final that nobody expected them to survive. In February, they won the cup. In March, Blackshaw returned, and the league form followed. In April, the Rovers sit on 46 points from 33 matches, 12 clear of relegation, unbeaten in eight, with five matches remaining and nothing left to prove except what kind of team they want to be.

Vickers, 63, a retired shipping executive in his fifth year as chairman, was uncharacteristically expansive after the vote.

“We believe in what she’s building,” he said. “The cup was extraordinary. But it’s the league form since January that convinced us. This is a squad that knows what it’s doing. That comes from the manager.”

The extension would give Corbett the stability she has lacked throughout a turbulent season. The transfer budget, though described as modest, would be the first meaningful investment in incoming players since the 2023-24 season.

Whether she accepts is not a formality. Corbett has been linked to interest from Caravel City, whose manager Yannick Barbier is under increasing pressure after a run of draws, and from two unnamed clubs outside the capital. She has given no indication of her intentions.

What she has given is a team. Osei has 14 league goals and plays with the clinical certainty of a striker who trusts the system around him. Blackshaw has returned from injury and imposed himself on every match he has played. Dunmore’s 30-yard strike against Millhaven last Saturday was the goal of the season by any standard. Harwick — twenty years old, an academy graduate who had started two matches before February — has been a revelation at centre-back.

Forty-eight hours. The answer is expected by Friday evening.

In the meantime, there is a match to play. The Rovers travel to Haverford Town on Saturday — a return fixture against the team they beat 2-1 at Bridgewater in February, in the match where Blackshaw first injured his knee. Haverford, managed by Dai Llewellyn, are 15th and fighting to stay clear of trouble.

Corbett will prepare the team. She will have her notes. She will say nothing about the contract until she is ready.

She has been doing this for five months.