Chris Lakey King's Lynn will be forced to undergo a major behind-the-scenes overhaul should the Linnets win promotion for the second season in a row. Lynn begin a new era in Conference Blue Square North tomorrow with a trip to Burscough, their five-year plan bang on target - but chairman Ken Bobbins says that success will mean drastic changes.

Chris Lakey

King's Lynn will be forced to undergo a major behind-the-scenes overhaul should the Linnets win promotion for the second season in a row.

Lynn begin a new era in Conference Blue Square North tomorrow with a trip to Burscough, their five-year plan bang on target - but chairman Ken Bobbins says that success will mean drastic changes.

“It would be an unexpected bonus but in itself would cause us headaches because I think the only way to compete in the full Conference is to go full time and situated where we are at King's Lynn, logistically, I think we would have grave difficulties getting players to go full-time in our area,” said Bobbins, who is expected to stand down as chairman at the end of the season.

“It will happen one day, as soon as we can we would go full-time, but it is something that needs serious planning in advance. At the moment I'm not sure we are in a position to accommodate that.

“I think that if we were to go up to the Conference the whole of the board and the club itself would have to have a complete makeover because we would need to go full-time and that would require a lot more effort work and finance.

“It is a bit premature to fully discuss but I do feel the club would need a considerable cash injection to be competitive, just to be competitive in the Conference and that is something the whole board would have to consider and look at.”

For now the target is to finish in the top half of the table - a target that may well change once Lynn get used to their new surroundings in the north of England.

“I would like to think, and the club would like to think, that we are capable of challenging at the top, but it is such an unknown quantity to us, the league, that it would be foolish to actually make that a target at the moment,” said Bobbins.

“I feel that a month into the league we should have some indication then of how we can compete and where we are in the run of things. We play Droylesden in our third match this season and that should be a good test for us because they have just come down from Conference, they are one of the favourites, they have spent a bit of money I understand during the break and that will be a good tester for us.

“It's all very well making predictions, but you can only do that if you have some indications of what you're up against.”

Bobbins' master-plan was Conference-level football in four years, which the club has now achieved.

“We are actually bang on target at the moment,” he said. “In actual fact I think we have slightly under-achieved because I think we had the capabilities of possibly doing that a year earlier, but we didn't. We have got to put this one down this year as consolidation at worst so we would be looking for Conference in two years time. That's what we're looking for.”

(.) Read Linnets' press officer Mark Hearle's exclusive weekly behind-the-scenes column at www.edp24.co.uk/kingslynn