When Wolves celebrated their capture of the Second Division title on Sunday it capped a great couple of years for coach Dennis Brown.

Last year his side were FA Cup finalists and this year, after a superb unbeaten start, their promotion was never seriously in doubt.

But Brown is quick to point out that the hard work has barely begun if his players want to be competitive in a First Division, where they haven't played since 1990.

"I think we accomplished what we set out to do at the beginning of the season as far as winning the league and being promoted is concerned, but there is still plenty of improvement to be made,'' he said.

"Next season will be all about competing for positions. We will simply have to start from scratch during pre-season and allow the players to show me what they can do.'' Brown realises that there will have to be signings in the summer if Wolves want to survive. Crucially, five players will be attending college in the United States next season, thus limiting their availability so Brown will be on the lookout for experience to add to the ranks. "I would be kidding myself to say that we are going up and expected to compete well with the same team,'' he admits. "We have five players going away to school and there will be players needed to fill their positions.

"I know we are going to have a lot of work to do. I am not going to kid myself and say that we are going up to win everything.'' He added: "One thing I would like for the team to do next season is to improve their overall fitness, their overall understanding of the game. Since I have been here, in just two years, they have come a long way. But they still have a way to go.

"But it has been the camaraderie within the team that inspired us this season. The respect they showed for me as the coach, combined with the hard work that they put in as a team, led to the success,'' he said. Brown has to be admired for the manner in which he blended young players such as John Barry Nusum and Joey Rego with the few senior players without any major difficulty.

"It wasn't that hard doing it. Once you play to a system and once everybody understands their role, things become easy,'' he said.

However he felt a contributing factor to their success was community involvement, something he never experienced during his long playing career with Somerset Trojans.

"It's great to see this sort of support in sport from the community, they have given us 100 percent all season. I have never seen anything like it.

Things are put on for the players that I could never have imagined, and the support from the various junior programmes we have is second to none,'' he said.

Dennis Brown