Part of the problem is that we have been out of league one for ten years and this will now become at least eleven years. So there is an element of impatience amongst part of the fan base and it's understandable. It's 30 years since we were last in the second tier as well. So for the size of club we are we have underachieved for many years looking at it this way. It's been discussed on here about the clubs natural level and it's not League two or the National League.
However this doesn't tell the story of the overall decline from finishing 7th in league one in 2011 to relegation to the National League in 2019. The only decent season in that time that bucked the trend was the Nolan play-off season in 2018.
So from 2019 to 2023 it was a case of building the club up from the ashes and putting the foundations in place for it to survive in the EFL once we got back there.
To get double promotion from the National League to League One would only have been possible if a league one team had been built while we were in the National League. Wrexham did that but they spent a lot of money doing it whereas the way the club operates it becomes a much more difficult task because teams are built more gradually over a few summers. MK Dons are doing similar to Wrexham did spending large amounts of money but it didn't work for them last season. It may come together for them this season and they will likely be favourites.
Our league position has improved season on season for the past six years. It may not be fast enough for some fans but I much prefer this than the boom and bust that we saw so many times from 2001 to 2019. One thing is for sure is that the six years under the Brothers has been the most stable the club has been and that is also factoring the fact there was the Covid pandemic in that time as well.
There is also a little bit of a ceiling to break through as well because we've been out of league one for a decade. The clubs that we are now competing with have been at that level more recently than us. Take the four sides that got promoted Port Vale bounced straight back up to LG1, Doncaster and Wimbledon spent three seasons in LG2 and Bradford spent six years at this level.
I do believe we will get to league one in the next year or two and if that means it takes four years in total like it did to get out of the National League then so be it. It's all well and good getting promoted to league one but we have to be good enough and strong enough to survive there. Off the field everything appears to be in place and I believe our owners have been learning about this level and what's needed to get out of it. So the past two years they will have learned a lot of lessons. We have already heard about more physicality and aggression in terms of potential signings.