Slimbridge Football Club have come a long way over the past 10 or 12 years and they will be looking to consolidate their achievements in the coming campaign.

So says club official Tim Blake, who has been involved with the club since the mid-noughties.

“When I look back to when I first got involved in the club, it would have been unthinkable for Slimbridge to be playing at home to Hereford in front of a crowd of just under a thousand as we did last season or to be taking on Bristol Rovers at the Memorial Stadium in the Gloucestershire County Cup,” he said.

“That shows how far we’ve come over the past decade.

“We’ve also played Forest Green Rovers in recent years and we’ve also hosted their ladies’ team.”

Slimbridge finished in the bottom three in Division One South and West of the Southern League last season but were well clear of the two teams below them.

It was their second season in the Southern League and Blake said: “Consolidation is the name of the game for us. It’s a fairly substantial step up from the Western League where we were before.

“We have to be realistic and say we’re not going to win promotion from the division.

“There are really three leagues within our division and our aim is to get out of the bottom one and establish ourselves in mid-table.”

Manager Freddy Ward, who has retained most of last season’s squad, knows he will not be able to compete financially with some of the other clubs in the division – Taunton Town, Evesham United and Salisbury to name three – and the club, with an average home attendance of around 100, refuse to spend money they haven’t got.

“Our job is to make sure we don’t do anything to endanger the club,” said Blake. “We need this club to be around for years to come so we will not be overstretching ourselves financially. We’ve got to keep it slow and steady.

“Look at two of the clubs who dominated our division last season: Hereford – reformed; Salisbury – reformed. That’s not a route we want to go down.”

Ward, who stepped up from the assistant’s role when previous boss Leon Sterling left in December, will obviously be a key figure as the club look to move up the table in 2017/18.

He has appointed Lee Driver-Dickerson as his right-hand man and Blake said of the 38-year-old: “He’s been at the club forever. Apart from a short break he’s been here since 2004 and he’s played over 500 games for the club.

“He’s a good motivator and reads the game very well because he has played it for so long.”

In fact the midfielder may be adding to his appearance tally this season.

“He’s obviously coming to the end of his career but he can still play a bit,” said Blake. “He told me the other day if he thinks he can change a game he will still put himself on.

“He’s very well respected at the club because of all the service he has given. From our perspective it’s great to see him talking to the younger players because he has so much experience at the club to fall back on.”