Great Yarmouth Town are drawing inspiration from their local rivals after putting themselves back on the map, writes Gavin Caney.

The Bloaters ended their four-year absence from the Thurlow Nunn League Premier Division on Saturday by avoiding final-day heartache for a second year in a row. A 1-0 win over Team Bury was immaterial in the end with Halstead losing at Ely City.

But most importantly the day's outcome ensured Yarmouth took the last of three First Division promotion places to secure a long-awaited return to the top flight – a level joint-boss Martyn Sinclair feels the size of a town like Yarmouth warrants.

He said: 'Look at what Lowestoft have achieved. We're probably a bigger town that has quite similar resources. I know they've got relegated this season to Step Three but you have to congratulate them.

'Then you've got Wroxham, a small village, and Dereham, a small town, and they've become big clubs around here. It's the same with Leiston (all at a higher level). We need to try and match what these clubs have done.

'With the size of Yarmouth we should have bigger support, more businesses wanting to get involved and more people wanting to help. But you've got to earn the right to be a good club, like those I've mentioned have. We had attendances of 55-60 when we took over and that's barely going to cover the cost of a referee and his assistants. You're never going to go too far.

'We then started to get 90 to 100 and while that doesn't seem much it does give everything a big lift. We had 206 on the final day and it was the biggest gate across the Thurlow Nunn League's two divisions. It shows that the people are there and we need to keep trying to tap into that for next season.'

Yarmouth's return to the top tier of the Eastern Counties set-up will see them renew acquaintances with neighbours Gorleston as the Bloaters continue to move forward from the serious financial difficulties which nearly saw the club go to the wall around the time they were relegated in 2011-12.

'We've got the derby back and that's a big thing for the area,' added Sinclair.

'I've played for both clubs and I remember 20 years ago playing in the derbies in front of 1,000 people. I don't think we'll get to that level but if we're both doing reasonably well then there should be 300-400 there, maybe 500, and that would be great.'