The future is looking bright for Moreton Rangers Football Club as they look to install floodlights at their London Road ground.

They hope to have them in place by the end of the season so that the club’s ground is up to the required standard to play in Division One West of the Hellenic League.

Of course, they have to do the business on the pitch as well, although vice-chairman Martin Jones said a top three finish in Division Two West should be enough to see them go up provided they meet all the other requirements.

The floodlights are the final box to be ticked and Jones said: “Quite a few teams haven’t got facilities that are up to the necessary standard which means you don’t have to win the division to go up. There is no automatic promotion.

“We’re raising money for the floodlights now and we definitely want them in place by the end of the season.”

London Road was, of course, home to the now defunct Moreton Town who folded in the mid-1990s. They were Hellenic League Premier Division champions in 1993/94 but while the champagne was flowing in the May, the bubbles soon went very flat as in February 1995 the club went bust.

They were difficult times for football fans in the town but two years later Moreton Rangers were founded.

Initially they just ran one junior team but slowly they built it up to two teams and then three and they continued to grow from there.

“A large number of our players have come through our junior ranks,” said Jones with understandable pride.

“The decision to have an adult team was so that the juniors had somewhere to progress into.”

These days the club are thriving with two adult teams and seven junior teams.

“We’ve got something like 110 kids and about 35 adults playing,” said Jones.

“We have a rule at the club that when we field a team at least half the players must have come through the youth set-up or live within four or five miles of Moreton.

“Our ethos is to stay local and the nucleus of our reserves have been playing for the club since the age of eight or nine.”

Jones first became involved with the club in 2000 when his son Graham joined as an under-8. Graham is now managing the reserve team while his dad was club secretary for many years before taking up his current post as the chairman’s right-hand man.

Father and son have seen Moreton grow in strength over the years and the club have been helped in large part by two former managers who were both involved in football at a decent level.

“When we set up the adult team we were in Cheltenham League Division Two,” said Jones. “Nick Jordan, who used to play for Cheltenham Town, was our manager, and then we had Graham Barnett in charge. He was Jan Molby’s assistant at Kidderminster Harriers.”

They may have been ‘big’ names but they delivered too because between them they won four promotions. These days Nick Timms is the main man after taking over last season.

“We’re an ambitious club and we want to go as high as we can,” said Jones. “We’ve made a lot of progress and we do things in the right way.”

Indeed they do and about 10 years ago they were awarded charter standard development status because they push through players to a higher standard.

“A lot of our coaches are former junior players,” said Jones. “We’ve got a a couple of teenagers – Ben Burdock and Jack Wise – who have taken their Level 1 badges and are now coaching the under-6s and under-7s.

“It’s great for football in the North Cotswolds that ourselves and Bourton Rovers are doing so well.”

Wise words and with people like Jones involved it’s clear that football in this part of the world is onto a winner.