Annan Athletic: Town on a high as team wins promotion after 15 years

Benjamin Luissint helped Annan Athletic win promotion to Scottish football's third tier for the first time on Friday night

Annan Athletic were admitted to the Scottish Football League in 2008 - but had never managed to make it out of League Two in the 15 years since.

That all changed on Friday night, with the club defeating Clyde in the promotion play-off.

Annan are now looking forward to four south of Scotland derbies with Queen of the South in League One next season.

But what does the club's historic promotion mean for the town itself?

Gillespie Proudfoot said promotion was particularly sweet for long-standing supporters

Gillespie Proudfoot works at the Café Royal on the High Street in Annan and as a fire fighter but tries to go to as many games as his work allows.

He said that completing the play-off triumph over Clyde was a major moment for the area.

"It is a massive thing for the club but mainly for the community as well," he said.

Mr Proudfoot said it was particularly pleasing for fans who had been following the team for a long time.

"There are a lot of people that have been supporters of the club for decades now and it has finally given them a bit of success and a bit of hope for the club to go on and do something in a higher division," he said.

"It is a brilliant atmosphere throughout the whole town."

Russell Brown said there was hard work in store for the club to build on its success

Former MP and now Annan Athletic vice chairman Russell Brown said everyone at the club was "absolutely ecstatic" about what had been achieved.

He said it had been a tough couple of weeks winning their way through the play-offs but securing promotion was an opportunity to work even closer with people in the town.

"The community is on a bit of a high and we want to build upon that," he said.

"We want to engage with even more of the community - we are a community club, engaging with lots and lots of people at all sorts of different levels but we want to strengthen that even more."

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He said that they knew that competing in a higher division would be a tricky task but it was important for the whole town to play its part.

"It is going to be a challenge, no-one on the board of seven that we have is under any illusions that this is going to be the answer to all our prayers," he said.

"It is going to become even harder and that is why we are going to be engaging with the community about what they can offer as just a little bit of help and support on the odd occasion.

"We think we can do it, we think we can get people engaged - but only time will tell."

If they can build on the enthusiasm generated by their historic promotion, they might yet surprise a few sides in their new division.