How much do we want a Football League club? Chorley boss Andy Preece throws down the gauntlet to the town and its council

​That is the view of Magpies boss Andy Preece after he led the club back to the top of the National League North on Tuesday night.

Chorley’s 1-0 win at Farsley Celtic saw them move two points clear of second-placed Scunthorpe United and this weekend’s visitors to Victory Park – Curzon Ashton, who are third.

This season is shaping up to be another concerted promotion push for Chorley as they look to return to the top flight of non-league football where they will be just one step away from the Football League.

A town like Chorley with a population of around 120,000 could conceivably sustain an EFL club but Preece knows a lot of work will need to be done off the pitch as well as on it if that ambition is to be anything other than a pipe dream.

Operating as a part-time club, the Magpies are somewhat handicapped by the fact that they don’t have a permanent training base.

"You have got to have the foundations right,” said Preece, who served a one-match touchline ban on Tuesday night in the 1-0 win over Farsley Celtic for being red carded in the aftermath of the match against Warrington Town in October.

“The hardest things for us, whatever happens on the pitch, we need a training base.

"You’re not going to be able to keep moving forward without that – I think that is key. It will probably boil down to how much the town of Chorley and the council would like a team capable of getting into the Football League and all the revenue that would bring in to the town.

"A lot of it is probably out of our hands, there is only so much we can do.

"We are building those foundations with trying to improve the ground and looking at the possibility at some point of going full-time.

"But I think having that training base is going to be key to everything.”