NEIL Young is hell-bent on taking Chester FC into the Blue Square Premier inside two years.
The 37-year-old wants to build on back-to-back title wins and lead the Blues to non-league football’s top flight by the time his new contract expires in 2014.
Chester were promoted to the Blue Square North on Monday after they sealed their second straight Evo-Stik Northern Premier League championship.
Young is confident his side can be a force next season. But he reckons plenty of work needs to be done before they could realistically compete the next level up.
Young said: “My ambition in the next two years is to try and get the football club into the Conference. Can we do that and how quickly can we do that are questions people are going to ask and, while I wouldn’t like to put an exact time frame on it, that is the ambition.
“What we’ve got to do now is build an infrastructure around the club that means once we get into the Conference or go full-time we will be ready, as we can’t just keep going the way we are.
“We have to plan for it and build the football side of things up – and that’s something I’m currently looking at with our director of football Paul Baker.”
The Blues still have three games to play – starting at relegation-threatened Mickleover Sports on Saturday (3pm).
But Young is already turning his thoughts to next season and an assault on the Blue Square North title.
He said: “It’s a massively tough division with the likes of Halifax already in it, Darlington and Kettering maybe coming down into it, and the likes of Chorley and FC United battling to come up.
“But I said the same when I took over two years ago and we went into the Evo-Stik League. We’ve managed to get out of that one and we’ll be having a right good go at competing in the Blue Square North.”
Young was full of praise for his players and his coaching team after Chester won the Evo-Stik NPL Premier Division with a 1-1 draw at home to Northwich Victoria on Monday.
He said: “We’re the biggest part-time football club in the country and with that comes a lot of commitments that other part-time clubs don’t have.
“But we’ve all bought into it and to win two titles on the run is a fantastic achievement.”
The Blues, who are away to third-placed Chorley next Wednesday (7.45pm), will be presented with the league trophy after their final game of the season at home to Marine on Saturday week.
Michael Powell will miss the Stocksbridge and Chorley matches through suspension.
Chester youth team midfielder Joe Ormrod has gone on trial at Premier League outfit Fulham.
