SALESBURY have sussed out the Ribblesdale League first division - now they're looking to step up to the senior ranks.

The Ribchester Road club have clinched a double double, winning the Division One championship and Lawrenson Cup for the second year running.

Without the reward of automatic promotion to the Senior Division for their success, they will be applying for entry to the top tier and hope to be taking on the cream of the Ribblesdale crop next season.

Despite a similar application being turned down last year when Salesbury didn't get the required votes of the member clubs to allow them entry, club captain Jason Rawson thinks they are better equipped for the step up.

He said: "We've got the budget to pay for a professional and the committee here has done a heck of a lot of work in improving the ground.

"We won the league and cup again this year and we need a new challenge. We have the ability to attract players if we go up to the senior league and with a professional we know we have a chance.

"We need to take our momentum forward and have to ask the question again. We've told the league we will be applying and we have to back ourselves."

One of the biggest progressions the club has made is the playing surface, which has been furnished with a new £20,000 drainage system.

Rawson added: "The problem we were getting was the amount of no results at home games.

"There were five or six games a season we couldn't play on that ground .

"It ruined our chances and would never have been acceptable in the Senior League.

"But we've done the work and have new machinery at the ground. The committee here is forward-thinking and wants to take us on."

With the Senior League's bottom two Padiham and Oswaldtwistle Immanuel likely to apply successfully for re-election to the Senior Division, one stumbling block for Salesbury is that introducing another team would give the division an odd number.

Rawson said: "Other leagues have an odd number of teams and there's always a way of working round it.

"We're not looking to relegate teams from the Senior League and we don't care how it happens, we just want Salesbury in there.

"I know we are up to it and we'll compete. We're not going to go in there and win by any stretch of the imagination. I know we'll be in the bottom half, but we'll hold our own.

"We can only keep knocking on the door."

Salesbury first entered the Ribblesdale ranks in 1994 when they left the Chorley and District League.

Since then they have won three Division One championships, been runners-up twice and lifted four Lawrenson Cups.

This year, opening batsman Ian Riley has hit almost 900 runs and Peter Blackburn has also passed 500 in a team that Rawson has led for the first time.

In the cup final they beat Ribblesdale Wanderers 2nds and won Division One with two games to spare.

And Rawson ended the season with not just a double, but a triple celebration when his wife gave birth to their first child, Oliver, last week.