Andy Wilcox will be flying back early from a family holiday so that he can watch Cheltenham Town’s opening game of the new season.

The new chairman wants to see for himself how Gary Johnson’s new-look team get on when they host Crawley Town on Saturday 4th August.

It’s been less than three months since Wilcox, who runs Gloucestershire-based construction company LCI Rail, took over as chairman from Paul Baker who did the job for more than 20 years.

And Wilcox certainly hasn’t been standing still since taking over the reins as a whole host of summer signings testify.

“Yes, it is the start of a new era,” Wilcox told The Local Answer.

“Paul did a fantastic job to get the club to where they are in the Football League. When he took over as chairman no one really thought it could happen, no one dreamt it could happen. It was fantastic.”

But now the club are back in League Two – they’ve only been outside the Football League for one season since winning promotion to the big-time for the first time in 1998/99 – Wilcox is keen for the club to kick on.

“I’m ambitious,” he said. “I want to take Cheltenham Town higher. It’s the same in business, I want to do as well as I can.”

And Wilcox has certainly backed up those words with actions ahead of the new campaign.

Johnson has been given the go-ahead to get the players he wants and there’s a definite feelgood factor around the club at the moment.

“We’ve bought early and brought some experienced players in,” said Wilcox. “It’s an exciting time. We needed a stronger core to the squad.”

Wilcox and everyone connected with the club are confident things will be very different to last time out when they ended the season in 17th spot.

“We will require a big step up from last season, of course, but if and when that is achieved we at Cheltenham Town Football Club see no reason why we can’t push for promotion to League One,” Wilcox said.

“These are ambitious thoughts of mine but without those dreams we fail. It’s exactly the same in business.

“We have to strive to be the best we can.

“I think Cheltenham Town have a bright future. We have a good manager and he’s very keen to do well.”

Johnson has been a manager for well over 25 years and has been in charge at Bristol City, Peterborough and Yeovil to name just three clubs.

Wilcox added: “We’ve been working very closely and it’s going very well. We speak a lot on the phone.

“What I like is he got his squad together early. Last season we didn’t and we didn’t have enough players to fill the bench for the first game.”

That won’t be the case this time around when the players run out at the wonderfully named Jonny-Rocks Stadium on the first Saturday in August.

And that newly named stadium will certainly be rocking if, as Wilcox hopes and believes, Cheltenham make a big push for promotion this season.