Well, the season came to a conclusion with our game with Featherstone at the weekend and the Barrow fans came out in force in their fancy-dress outfits.

Our supporters really are some of the best out there and they’ve supported the club through thick and thin this season.

You might be forgiven for thinking that there was going to be a relaxation period at the club, but nothing could be further from the truth in the boardroom.

Having achieved our objective of safety, we now want to raise the bar a little. The board and the coach definitely want to push on and we have already had a planning meeting this week discussing our aims and we really want to establish ourselves as a genuine Championship side.

If you look at recent history, a lot of first-year promoted sides do reasonably well but then standards dip in year two and a relegation battle ensues.

We don’t want that to be us. We’ve put in too much hard work to throw it all away through lack of preparation for the season ahead.

As our supporters will know from our press releases, we are starting to assemble a side capable of mixing it in the Championship, as we’ve signed up much of this year’s squad and have made some exciting additions.

I want the support to swell at Craven Park and I know the best way to achieve this is with a quality product on the field.

We are very close to announcing some more quality signings that will really have the terraces buzzing if we can pull them off.

We are putting a lot of investment in the team and I’m banking on the support of the public and our sponsors alike. It may be that sponsors can help us in some other ways than hard cash, like providing job opportunities for some of our players.

I know, as a club, we’ve got to do our bit off the field too and that means helping more to promote our sponsors.

Maybe in the past we have taken some money and given little back, but we’ve got to work together to promote each other’s businesses by giving the publicity they deserve.

Finally, I’ve said this before, but I’ve got a really good feeling about our club. I can feel the fans, the sponsors, the coaching staff, the players and the board going in the same direction. We are going to end up in a good place.