Gillingham chairman Paul Scally has brushed aside suggestions that this season will be one of consolidation.

A bullish Mr Scally, pictured, believes that their return to League 1 will only be a stepping stone to a return to the second tier of English football.

The Gills were relegated from the Championship in 2005 but Mr Scally is determined that a return will be imminent.

"Promotion is the aim, why else are we here?" he said. "We’re not here to try and stay in the division or try and stay in mid-table. We’re here to try and get automatic promotion.

"It’s nice to get back into League 1 but all it is, is a step to where we want to be – back in the Championship.

"We are going to have a real go. People wouldn’t have given Peterborough much chance of getting promotion from this division to the Championship and they did it fairly comfortably in the end."

Full story in our 8-page Gills pre-season supplement in Friday's Medway Messenger