EV2 Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League Division One
The Toolstation NCEL is now the goal for champions Wombwell Town, but Karl Rose is realistic about how quickly his men can make the dream come true.
Wombwell are the oncoming storm for many of the Premier Division because of their ambition to reach Step 6 football.
Many expect the Barnsley-based side to challenge, but former Frickley Athletic boss Rose admits his club have a lot of work to do to be able to take on the Premier Division big guns.
“I think as soon as possible, there’s no real timescales on it,” Rose told Non League Yorkshire.
“If we’re good enough to compete and be up there, we want to try and get promoted as soon as possible.
“But, they are easy words you can say.
“The hard work comes with bringing the bodies in and recruiting right to make sure that we can compete on-the-pitch.
“By no means am I saying we are going to be up there and challenging, we know there is a lot of hard work to do.
“Behind the scenes, the next goal is promotion from that as soon as we possibly can.
“If we do it next season it will be an absolute dream, far beyond our expectations.”
Rose is also knowledgeable about the tests his men face in the top flight.
“It probably has been a wasted two years with our plans, but we have only completed two seasons and won two titles,” he said.
“We couldn’t have anymore than that on-the-pitch.
“We have enjoyed it and celebrated it, but straightaway we’re back down to earth because we know next season is going to be a hell of a lot harder.
“There are a lot of very good sides in that league – Dodworth, Wombwell Main, Swinton, Ecclesfield.
“It looks a very competitive league in which a lot of teams can beat each other on their day.
“Houghton Main put a run together at the end of the season and Penistone were flying at the start of the season.
“We know we need to improve and we need bodies and we need to evolve and get better on-the-pitch.
“We don’t think we’re going to walk into that league and compete at the top end.
“There’s a lot of hard work from now until the end of the pre-season needs to be done to recruit and improve and at least make us able to compete and finish as high as we can.
“Of course we want to get promoted, but let’s see how do.
“We’re not saying we’ll go up and be right up there. We have to earn the right and that comes from recruitment and hard work.”
Although he openly admits to planning a recruitment, Rose says he intends to give his championship-winning players the opportunity to test themselves in the Premier.
“You try to cage (the difference between the Premier and Division One) from cup competitions and pre-season games, but the league finds you out,” he said.
“You play 26 games and you play all types of teams.
“You have the big lads who will kick you and you have the passing teams who will pass you to death.
“You’ll play on absolute paradise pitches and then mud baths so to win a league you have to tick every single box.
“Based on that, we had a settled side towards the end of the season and we had a lot of depth which was huge and critical.
“The collective togetherness has got us over-the-line, but with recruitment, all those lads deserve the chance to step-up and kick on.
“But, we certainly know we would like to bring in four or five bodies in to add to the squad.
“Who knows, we may go into the season flying, but we may go a month into the season and realise we have to get another four or five in.”
Wombwell sealed the title by winning 8-0 at Sheffield Medics last Saturday.
Tasty midfielder Chris Byrnes, a man who always delivers, added the cheese on the pizza topping with a late long range screamer.
The title triumph was two years in the making and Rose was thrilled.
“We’re absolutely delighted,” he said.
“I said to you at the start of the season that our goal was to win the league.
“We knew it would be tough and we had a bit of a slow start, but we won the last 11 games which we needed to because Handsworth pushed us all the way.
“We finally got over-the-line last Saturday and we did celebrate.
“You said we didn’t celebrate promotion (after beating Denaby), but god, we celebrated the championship.”