Buxton chairman Dave Hopkins admits he can't help dream about promotion

The Bucks ended their aborted NPL campaign in strong fashion with creditable draws against the top two and an impressive win over fourth-places Basford in their last match.

And Hopkins is hoping Gary Hayward’s men can build on those foundations whenever the new campaign gets underway and make his dream come true.

“You dream about promotion and I am passionate about it,” he said. “We are proud to be in the league, but we are ambitious and we want to get out of the league.

Buxton FC goalkeeper says desire and maintaining standards is key to his side's promotion ambitions

Gary Hayward full of praise for Dave Hopkins

Hard work will be key for Buxton

“We will be aiming for top spot. Sometimes they say the best way to go up is in the play-offs but who knows, I would take it being wrapped up with three games still to go.

“Whatever happens, the beauty about football is you always live to fight another day.

“We were ambitious last season having made the play-offs the year before, but it obviously didn’t work out.

“Gary came in and he put his stamp on the team and started bringing in his own players.

“Our form at the end of the season made us feel very confident going into every game. We pushed some top teams.

“We went to South Shields and got the draw, we were very unlucky to concede an almost last second equaliser against FC United.

“We then got a very good win at Basford who were going for the play-offs. We won 2-0 but we could have been 4-0 up at half-time.”

But Hopkins is all too aware that it is very difficult to get too far ahead with so much uncertainty going on.

“It is not easy planning right now, there’s bigger things going off in the world,” he added.

“The current situation has to take precedence over everything, that makes it more frustrating in a way - football is always that release for people.

“We have got lockdown and the things we love on a Saturday taken away.

“As chairman nothing has changed, hopefully things have just been paused in time.

“The world, on a wider scale, will be a different place, but in terms of football it is everyone’s passion and we hope to approach things next season as we would have done before.

“We are just looking forward to getting back to things, it is hard knowing when that will be but you have to respect what is going on right now.”

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