ERIC Whalley joked he may have hung himself from Accrington Stanley's floodlights had the Reds sunk back into the Conference.

But the passionate Reds chairman is no quitter - and no sooner had Stanley secured their Football League status, Whalley outlined his vision to make the club a force in League Two.

He is prepared to provide the necessary resources manager John Coleman seeks to ensure Accrington are not faced with another scrap for survival.

And aside from matters on the pitch, Whalley is eager to transform Stanley's Fraser Eagle Stadium into a venue the club can be mightily proud of.

Improving the club's headquarters, however, is not designed to satisfy the likes of Dennis Wise, who during his spell as Swindon boss was far from congratulatory in his assessment of the ground.

Whalley wants it to remain hostile to opposing teams, but he insists new facilities need implementing to try and reach a par with North West rivals Bury and Rochdale.

Work on the stadium has begun in earnest, with contractors moving in to level off the playing surface, following Accrington's dramatic 3-2 win over Macclesfield last Saturday that ensured another crack in English football's fourth tier.

Had Stanley been relegated to the Conference, many may have wondered if Whalley, who took over the club in 1995, would have had the stomach for another fight, to guide the Reds back out of Non-League once more.

"I would not have liked to have thought about it," said Whalley. "At the end of the day, you might have found me hanging from the floodlight pylons!

"It's more than likely I would have stayed on had we gone down.

"I made a comment a few years ago that I would get Accrington into the Football League and then retire, but that quote came too early.

"So instead of hanging from a floodlight pylon, I would have most probably tried to fight my way back before I did call it a day. I've no thoughts of retiring at the moment."

Whalley, whose desire to run his home-town club shows no signs of diminishing, has set out his ambitions to take Stanley to a new level before he does say farewell.

At the top of his priorities is improving Stanley's ground. With plans to move to a new venue unlikely to bear fruit in the immediate future, Whalley is focused on the Fraser Eagle Stadium.

It is costing a six-figure sum to level off the pitch, and thereby remove the Stanley slope, and around £200,000 will be spend on installing a 1,000 seater stand on the Whinney Hill Terrace over the next 12 months.

He said: "The ambition now is to get another promotion but we need to improve the stadium.

"I don't think we can hope to go any higher than League One with the stadium we're at now.

"But we are spending more money on the pitch and we're having a new stand, so we are trying to invest in the ground and on players.

"We admit we don't have the best ground in the world, but unfortunately we have not had the football stadia improvement grants like most others did after Hillsborough.

"They have all got all-seater stadiums now, even in League Two. There's only about three or four that haven't. We are the last ones to come up and obviously our ground is not as good as some others."

Whalley's big plans also include boosting Stanley's hospitality facilities, from which the club can look to generate more income from home matches.

"Besides having the lowest facilities in the Football League, we've also got the lowest hospitality rooms, and that is a big thing," said Whalley.

"We are behind the likes of Rochdale and Bury in terms of hospitality."

Although stadium improvements are in order, Whalley does not want to sabotage the ground's almost old-fashioned feel that can so often intimidate opponents.

Earlier this season, Wise bemoaned Stanley's facilities after Swindon failed to win.

Whalley added: "I could not tell you what I think of Dennis Wise, his comments didn't help us.

"At home, we don't want the stadium to be nice and comfortable for the opposition. This is a very intimidating place when the crowd gets behind us."