THE Football League season was brought to a close on Monday with Stockport's victory over Rochdale in the play-off final at Wembley, a season which has been a credit to the vast majority of clubs in the Football League.

The play-off finals typified the kind of good quality football which is being played outside the Premiership without the sort of histrionics that we all too frequently see on television.

The behaviour of the players in the top flight is fast reaching the point of embarrassment. Every decision the referee makes is disputed and almost every foul invites players to congregate around the incident pushing and shoving each other.

We saw none of this in the play-offs, just honest, open commitment with a high degree of ability.

With the costs of watching Premiership football continuing to rise, the attraction of attending matches at Football League level will also continue to rise.

Despite our promotion and despite our need for as much finance to flow into the club as possible if we are to compete in Division 1, we have kept the majority of our admission prices the same as last season and actually lowered the cost of family tickets.

With the place buzzing after such a successful season there is a window of opportunity to encourage the next generation of our supporters to commit themselves to the club.

Already there has been a good response to the reforming of the Junior Bulls, season tickets are selling well with the anticipation for the very attractive matches we will encounter beginning to rise.

With relatively close neighbours of Cheltenham, Swindon, Bristol Rovers and Walsall to play we also have a couple of big clubs in Leicester City and Leeds United in the division, which makes it all the more attractive.

We need to do some work around the ground, but the big decision will be whether or not to invest in a new irrigation system for the pitch. We have the perennial problem of getting water on to the playing surface both during the pitch renovation period and during the season. The surface became very bumpy towards the end of last season making it more difficult for us to pass the ball and in particular run with it whilst it was bobbling about. Could that have been one of the reasons why are home record did not match that of our away one?

The system we are considering at present would have pop-up sprinklers down the touch lines and through the middle of the pitch, enabling us to water just before the match and at half time. This makes the surface just a little quicker and often produces a faster, more exciting game.

When development takes place the large water tanks required for the system can easily be relocated so now the only obstacle is the cost.

At around £25,000 we have to consider if that is the best use of the money. Having once again spent a substantial sum to renovate the pitch it makes sense to be able to look after it properly, therefore very serious thought is needed about this investment.