IT was nice to finally guarantee our place in the UniBond premier division next season with our 1-0 home win over Ashton United.

Obviously, we'd have liked to have done that a little bit earlier but we had a disappointing March, at least results-wise if not in terms of performances, and it meant we went into April still looking over our shoulders a little bit.

Now we've put it to bed at long last, I think it only right to pay tribute to the lads for their efforts over these past six months. It's easy to forget that we were fourth from bottom in mid-October, with Hyde, Colwyn Bay and Gateshead below us. One only has to look at where those three clubs are now in relation to ourselves to see what might have happened to us had we not dragged ourselves up by our bootstraps.

With no cheque-book to resort to, we've done it by sticking together and grafting. Each and every one of the players who has been in our dressing-room at some stage has done a job for me and my assistant, Dalton Steele. Taking everything into account, we could not have asked for any more from them.

Well done, boys! The task now is to build on the platform we've created for ourselves. With the new Conference northern feeder division due to start in August 2004, it's clear next season is going to be an important one for Altrincham as, indeed, it will be for all clubs at our level.

We now need to get ourselves ready to meet that challenge head-on, but that doesn't mean our sole objective next season will be to prepare for the one after. If, over the summer, we can add one or two quality players in certain areas, you never know how close that could take us to winning the UniBond League and thereby by-passing the new division.

It will be extremely difficult, I know, but that's what we will set out to do. Looking through our current squad, I think it's fair to say we've based our improvement on a solid defence. The back-four has, by and large, remained the same since I took over and we have, I feel, had an unsung hero in our goalkeeper, Richard Acton.

Lots of people tell me Ackie is a little bit prone to this or that, but, if he adds up his clean-sheets come the end of the season, I reckon he'll have a total which most keepers would be happy with.

I'm delighted to say that our young England midfielder, Ian Craney, has just signed a new, two-year contract, while we're also very close to reaching agreement with our captain, Rod Thornley, who, as everyone knows, has had a difficult time with injury these last three months.

I think everyone here is excited at the prospect of seeing Rod link up with our latest signing, Mattie Hughes, and those two along with Tony Sullivan and Dave Gardner should ensure we've plenty of attacking potential.

There are a lot of good players here who will not be on contract, but their commitment to this club is there for all to see. I believe it's beyond question that we have many players who could earn better money elsewhere, in some cases, by even dropping down a division.

But what we cannot give them in cash, we try to make up for in professionalism. Everyone who comes to Moss Lane says it feels like a proper football ground. It's neat and tidy, the pitch is good and our players don't want for much in terms of preparation for matches.

As some people will know already, I myself have recently written off money owed to me by the club after one of our former directors, Dave Tracey, got the ball rolling by instructing that a loan he made us should be removed from our debts. Current director Grahame Rowley has responded by converting a loan of his into a donation and, hopefully, this will snowball. People say they love Altrincham and this is a chance for those owed money to show they mean it.