Cove Rangers chairman Keith Moorhouse is determined his club will be in the SPFL.
The Highland League leaders need one point from its remaining two matches – at Clach tonight or Turriff United on Saturday – to take the title.
They would then face Lowland League champions Edinburgh City in a two-leg play-off next month for the right to play League 2s bottom club in a two-match decider. Third time lucky is Moorhouse’s hope and the chairman said: “We lost out on two occasions to join the Scottish League, first to Gretna and then when Anna Athletic were elected. We have never hidden the fact we want to play in the Scottish League, I can assure everybody on that point, and the board are 100% behind the ambition, as are the management.
“One of the key things for us when our manager John Sheran came back to the club was he shared our ambition.
“We want to be part of the SPFL and are all hoping that can happen, whether that be this season, the next or whenever.”
As Cove’s new ground at Calder Park is still in the planning stage, the Granite City side would not be allowed to groundshare with a Highland League club should they earn promotion to the SPFL.
Not a problem according to the chairman who added: “We have good relationships with all four Angus clubs, Montrose and Forfar Athletic, both of who have artificial surfaces, as will we when we move to our new ground, as well as Brechin City and Arbroath. They all had representatives at our game against Formartine United last week.
“There are already clubs ground-sharing in Scottish football at the moment, Stenhousemuir’s Ochilview also hosts East Stirling for example. We have already started to make plans, but we are keeping that to ourselves at the moment.”
Cove’s achievements are all the more remarkable given they have had no permanent home this season and Moorhouse added: “The stadium is going through the planning process, like everything else that takes time. But it isn’t being held up by anything so we will just sit tight. Of course we would like to play in our new stadium tomorrow, but I am sure that at some point next season we will be there, whichever league we are in.
“Banks o’ Dee, Inverurie Locos, Formartine United and Keith have been fantastic to us this season and we are all grateful to them for their help.”