THE beaming smile on the face of Accrington Stanley chief executive Rob Heys told the story of the feeling around the Crown Ground.

“It’s been a long hard two seasons that we’ve been through,” said Heys as the Reds celebrated reaching the League Two play-offs.

“It’s been embarrassing for the football club because we’ve been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. It’s not good for the town.

“To be hitting the headlines for all the right reasons now, it means people can unite behind the club and be proud of us.

“It’s not just the lift the club gets. It’s the lift the town gets.”

A lifelong Stanley fan, Heys bore much of the pressure of the club’s financial problems on his shoulders. All and sundry demanded answers, but he didn’t always have them.

The neutral stuck in the middle of a three-way ownership struggle between Ilyas Khan, Eric Whalley and Dave O’Neill, he was the man juggling the unpaid bills and trying to keep the club going day to day.

Khan’s takeover was finally completed a month ago, and Stanley’s remarkable rise to the play-offs – 18 months since the club almost went out of business – was completed on Saturday.

“With the ownership sorted and the main sponsor coming on board last week, things are really coming together and this is the icing on the cake,” said Heys.

“No-one is getting carried away. We know we’re not promoted to League One yet or anything like that. But you’ve got to enjoy the fact we are where we are.”

Stanley face an away semi-final on Sunday, May 15 before the second leg at the Crown Ground on Friday, May 20.

Both will be shown live on Sky, while victory would mean a trip to Old Trafford for the final on Saturday, May 28.

“If nothing else the least it can do is raise our profile immensely around the world on television,” said Heys.

“Financially it’s not a massive big money pay day with tens of thousands of pounds, but it does mean that we get £20,000 per leg in Sky money and ticket sales I believe are amalgamated between the four semi-final ties and divided between the four clubs.

“We’ve had a load of promotional merchandise ready to order, too.

“If you get to the final you get gate money but I don’t think there’s television money.

“A couple of weeks ago I had an e-mail from the Football League asking if we could have a rough guess how many fans we’d take to Old Trafford if we got there.

“That really summed up how close we were. It could be anything, but you’d like to think 15,000 perhaps.”

Stanley’s play-off challenge has come despite off-the-field problems and Heys appreciates the under-standing showed by all at the club.

“The players and the staff behind the scenes have all been paid late and they’ve had an awful lot to deal with,” he said.

“A lot have been concerned over their jobs, but they’ve come in and kept on doing their jobs.

“It’s testament to them, the players, the staff and John Coleman that we are where we are.

“John is a fantastic bloke to work with, and he keeps the players motivated.

“The more we continue to progress the more attention John will get, but hopefully we can make Accrington an attractive proposition for John to stay.”