Promotion is the first building block into turning St Albans City into a bigger and better club, according to joint owners Lawrence Levy and John McGowan.

The owners were in Chesham on Monday to see St Albans win the play-off final 3-1 thanks to goals from John Frendo and Steve Wales.

It was the culmination of 18 months of hard work since they took over, but it was just the starting point.

“It’s fantastic. I’m ecstatic. I can’t believe it,” said Levy on the pitch after the final whistle ended St Albans’ three-year hiatus from the Conference.

“It’s a good starting block to build on [but] we’ve got a lot of work to do to bring the community with us,” he added.

“Promotion is the first stage. We need to look for a stadium, we need take this club to bigger things and bring more youth through. There are young St Albans and Harpenden players in the team but we want more of them.”

A clearly overjoyed McGowan stated promotion would only spur the club on.

“It is everything for the city and the team and it moves us to do more and more,” he said.

“The team is doing what it’s doing on the pitch; we need to be behind the scenes supporting them. We’re working away trying to develop the club.”

The owners were part of a 1,500 strong contingent of fans that made the short trip to Chesham to see the game, showing the support the club has within the city.

“There’ll be a big party tonight then we’ll wake up and we really have to go out get the help from the council and the community. If we get this level of support week in week out then the sky is the limit. This is just the start,” said Levy.

“We had 1500 people here today, which shows how import the club is to the city.”