Scarborough Athletic chairman Trevor Bull: 'We are living the dream after promotion to National League North'

Scarborough Athletic chairman Trevor Bull and manager Jono Greening share a hug after the play-off final win

Photos by Richard Ponter — Scarborough Athletic chairman Trevor Bull and manager Jono Greening share a hug after the play-off final win Photos by Richard Ponter

Boro defeated Warrington 2-1 in a dramatic NPL Premier play-off final on Monday in front of a crammed Flamingo Land Stadium.

Bull said: “When you consider that we have a local lad as skipper, two local lads on the management team, a local lad as manager and a chairman who is a local lad, we really are living the dream.

“It is an amazing achievement to get this football club back to where the old club ended its time.

“Jono Greening has done exactly what he said that he wanted to do in his first interview with us when he came here.

“Back in November or December you would never have believed this was possible, the run we have been on since we lost to Buxton has been amazing.

“We have only lost three matches since then and only once since New Year's Day, that is a great run and the town has really got on board in the play-off games.

“Before the final I was in town for a few hours and you could see the way that local people were getting behind the club.

Boro fans swarm onto the Flamingo Land Stadium pitch for the post-match presentation after the play-off final win

Photo by Richard Ponter — Boro fans swarm onto the Flamingo Land Stadium pitch for the post-match presentation after the play-off final win Photo by Richard Ponter

“One of the main things we wanted to do when we started the club up was to give the town the best football that we could and I feel that we are doing that.

“The demand for tickets for the final was amazing with over 7,000 trying to buy 2,800 tickets, and when we organised the YouTube stream of the game we had over 10,5000 people following the game online. I had congratulations messages from Thailand, Canada, Bulgaria and Malta among others after the game.”

Bull is already looking towards next season and the challenges the club will face adapting to life at National League North level.

He added: “The plans for next season are already under way.

Scarborough Athletic chairman Trevor Bull addresses the fans after the play-off final win

Photo by Richard Ponter — Scarborough Athletic chairman Trevor Bull addresses the fans after the play-off final win Photo by Richard Ponter

“We knew the minimum capacity for the National League North was 3,000 so we consulted the county council to review the capacity, and they have granted us a new capacity limit which is over 3,000.

“We will also need to look at giving the away supporters more facilities and making it a better experience for them as attracting the away fans will help the local economy hugely.

“We are now going from a division with one full-time team into a division with lots of full-time teams, there is also a lot more travel involved as we could be heading south as far as Gloucester City so we will have to look carefully at costs and budgets.”