Here’s my column from last week’s Leader. It forms part of the paper’s comprehensive pre-match coverage every Friday, featuring interviews, an in-depth look at the opposition and lots of statistical analysis. All content in the column (c) www.leaderlive.co.uk.

Ah, the first day of the season! A special time when everyone still thinks its going to be their year. By five o’clock tomorrow a lot of fans around the country will be reassessing that position, but irrespective of how the Woking game goes, I’ll still have that positive feeling. That’s partly because we do have a genuine chance of enjoying a good season, with some of our young players developing nicely, but mostly because the fear that gripped me over the last decade, for once, isn’t colouring my view of our prospects.

That fear was oblivion. It has been difficult for me to look forward to a new season and think purely about our chances on the pitch when I felt there was a good chance of us going out of business anyway. Every exciting signing would be accompanied by the question of whether we could afford him, or if he was another nail in the coffin. Look at Portsmouth for an illustration of how that works.

Let’s not forget, as we kick off our campaign tomorrow, that this time last year we nearly didn’t start the season. We could have been looking forward to a Phoenix club’s first match tomorrow, having endured a season off rather than seeing Wrexham accumulate the most points in a season in the club’s history.

That’s not to say we’re out of the woods now: no football club can ever honestly say it’s safe these days (I’m looking at you, United fans!) However, at least we know now that, barring acts of Osborne, we ought to be fairly stable financially. With fans running the club, decisions will be made for the good of the club, not the pockets of the owners.

Of course, it’s up to us to decide what decisions the board make now: if we want to have a successful club which competes to return to the Football League, we need to show our backing. With the trust looking, thankfully, to run the club according to it means, rather than gamble with its future, it’s the revenue we generate which will establish the club’s ambitions.

A club which averages over 4,000 for home games has surely got to get itself out of the Conference sooner rather than later. With the money now all going straight into the running of the club, that’s simple financial common sense. The vicissitudes of an unjust two-up two-down system might make promotion more difficult than it ought to be, but if we establish ourselves as one of the best supported teams in the league than the lottery of the play-offs will only affect the timing of our promotion, not the inevitability of it.

So, the future’s in our hands. With the knowledge that our money only goes towards the success of Wrexham Football Club, we can guarantee its long-term success with our enthusiasm, or condemn it to mediocrity with our apathy. Now it’s over to you.