NPL Division One East
Mike Thompson plans to raise expectations at Bridlington Town this season.
Bridlington survived last season following drama on the final day but Thompson hopes relegation battles are a thing of the past.
“Progression is what we’re looking for,” Thompson told Non League Yorkshire.
“We have a fantastic fan-base that if we leave everything out there and we’re competitive, they’re going to be happy.
“I want a little bit more than that and we have seen we can achieve that with the boys we have got in.
“A huge thing for me during pre-season was the togetherness in the dressing room.
“Improvement is the key.
“We have to be better than the club was last year and I believe we have the attributes to do that and to be looking up rather than down.
“We will be looking to push into that top ten area – that’s our aspiration.”
Thompson will lead Brid into his first league game in charge when they host old NCEL foes Long Eaton Town and the Brid is positive about how ready his men are.
“We feel prepared,” he said.
“We have gone under the radar and been quiet.
“We have worked intensely with the boys we have got.
“We learnt something in every game we played during pre-season.
“We learnt what we need to do to be competitive.
“We learnt how fit we are and what we had to do off-the-ball.
“It has been a really productive pre-season in my opinion.
“We got to the point of playing a really strong Hull City academy team as a final pre-season game and that couldn’t have gone any better.
“Score-line aside it taught us a lot so going into the season we’re confident.
“We like where we’re at.”
The evidence was in the pudding when Brid beat Whitley Bay in the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round tie last week.
“It all kicked off last Saturday for us with the extra prelim round of the FA Cup,” he said.
“That was competitive football and that is what we have been working towards for the last six or eight weeks of pre-season.
“It was a fantastic start and we couldn’t have asked for much more.
“We were at home and we knew we had the advantage of a home tie in the prelim round if we won so there was stuff for us to work towards which is beneficial for us as a club and the result went our way.”