BROMSGROVE Rovers have been promoted to the Dr Martens Western league.

It means the Victoria Ground club has spent just one season in the Midland Football Alliance and has returned to the Western at the first time of asking.

Rovers, who finished second in the Midland Football Alliance, have been accepted for promotion by the Dr Martens league as champions Stourbridge failed to meet the ground criteria.

A Dr Martens league committee met on Thursday, May 9, to decide the promotion issues with Gary Hackett and Jon Ford's team being joined in the Western next season by Taunton Town.

No team has been relegated from the Western while Fleet Town have been placed in the Eastern division.

Rovers can now look forward to local derby games with Redditch, Stourport and Evesham next term.

But the promotion is subject to undisclosed conditions although chairman Tom Herbert, on holiday in Australia, has been contacted and confirmed the conditions will be met.

The decision is a huge relief to Rovers as they have had to wait two weeks to hear.

Club secretary Phil Baker said: "I think everybody who has been involved with the club has been on tenter hooks.

"We had people contacting the club everyday and supporters have probably worn their nails down. We can now start planning one or two things for next season and what we are going to do."

Rovers' achievement is quite remarkable given the fact they were just 20 minutes from extinction before the start of their Midland Football Alliance campaign.

Baker said: "That goes down to a lot of hard work and commitment, particularly the chairman, who has put a lot of his own money in.

"Tom Herbert was very determined that the club would do well and even he would admit that we did better than expected.

"We have stabilised over the last 12 months and we will adapt to playing at a higher level and a lot of fans have already said they want to buy season tickets."

The decision also means joint managers Hackett and Ford can sit down and start planning for the new campaign.

Hackett said: "We are looking forward to next season.

"The club has had five years of really disappointing times and it's really good to get some success and there will be a lot of optimism going into the new season."

On the playing side, the bulk of the squad will remain with Rovers although Matt Coppin and Lee Young have been released.

"We are looking to our existing players and have players in mind who we want to bring in," Hackett said.

"I think we have the players capable of playing at Dr Martens level."

Hackett and Ford are also sifting through the requests from players wanting to play for Bromsgrove.

But there will be little chance for a summer break as Hackett wants work to start now.

He said: "Our three main priorities are getting the players in place for next season, pre-season training and pre-season friendlies."