Jimmy: We will aim to win title
ACCRINGTON Stanley assistant manager Jimmy Bell says the team are heading into League One next season with the intention to win the title.
The Reds are preparing for their first ever season in the third tier of English football, having finished as League Two champions during the latest campaign.
Bell is excited for the forthcoming season, and insists that Accrington will be attempting to make it back-to-back league titles, but knows it will be extremely difficult to achieve that.
“We are going to set out to win the league, we always do, but we will take the season in stages,” he told the club’s official website.
“We were favourites to do go down last year, the smallest budget, but we are fighters and where we will end up next season, I don’t know. I didn’t know where we would end up this season!
“To forecast where we will finish is impossible but we will give it our all and, with the fans backing and with the players we have got, everything about it, who knows?”
Bell also hopes that more supporters will come down get behind Stanley by packing out the Wham Stadium over the next 12 months.
“Sunderland have a ground capacity of 49,000 and I looked at how many people live in Accrington and it’s around 35,000 – that puts in place the kind of teams we will be facing and there will be a lot of big clubs in League One,” he said.
“But I think we have played 18 of them so we are not scared, we know what we’re going into and it’s another part of our journey and we want the town of Accrington to get on board and follow and support us. It will be a fantastic season.
“Both Blackburn and Burnley had fantastic seasons and we are bang in the middle but there is no reason, if we keep doing well, why we can’t get support from both sides and from afar and get more of the town involved.
“Going back a few years, we got 3,000 when we played Morecambe. I don’t know why people didn’t come, perhaps they got fed up with League Two, but we have moved on again and I urge people to come and support us now.
“It’s a fantastic club, work is being done at the ground, the players are accessible and everyone at the helm is doing it for Accrington Stanley and the town of Accrington.
“I know people have got disillusioned with the Premier League so we want them to come to Accrington, give it a go and they will be hooked. We have seen it happen so many times.”
And captain Seamus Conneely insists supporters will see a team eager to make an impact in League One.
“We are raring to go,” he told the club’s official website.
“Promotion has sunk in, we have had three or four weeks to get used to it.
“We had a great month in April, we got promoted and then won the league.
“We enjoyed ourselves and at the end of my career I will look back and it could be the best thing I ever did but now it’s all about pre-season.
“I guess there will be more of an edge in this pre-season, the gaffer will bring in a couple of players, it will be a higher standard and everyone will want to be in that starting XI on the first day of the season, no different to last season really.
“We do have a settled squad though, most of the lads are signed up, and that’s a huge boost.
“Years ago Accrington were victims of their own success, where they did well and teams came in and cherry-picked the players but now no one will go on a free as everyone is on longer term contracts. There will be big teams, big occasions and big crowds with a lot to look forward to.”
‘We are fighters and where we will end up next season, I don’t know’