Maidstone United chief executive Bill Williams says it’s never too soon to go up.

Promotion to the National League would bring considerable expense for Stones co-owners Terry Casey and Oliver Ash, not least the cost of raising capacity at the Gallagher to the required 4,000.

A bigger playing budget, travel costs and overnight stays for long-distance matches also come into the equation.

But Mr Williams has rejected suggestions the club could do with another year in National League South, ahead of the first leg of the play-off semi-final at Truro on Wednesday.

He said: “It’s never too soon to go up. I worked out once that in my life in football you get the opportunity to go up once every five years on average.

“It’s taken Sutton 25 years to get back to National League level but as a general rule, a decent club and a decent team gets a chance every five years.

“We’ve had wonderful success over the last few years and perhaps there will come a time when it’s not like that.

“Right now, we have an opportunity to go up to the National League.

“We had the chance to win the league – albeit a difficult one – but now we have a second chance in the play-offs.

“If we go up, the money men – Terry and Oliver – will find a way to make it work.

“We shouldn’t admit this but we’ve had to talk about promotion because of our situation.

“We’ve put planning permission in to extend the ground, based on ‘hey, should we go up, we’ll need to extend for league requirements’.

“If we left it we’d be too far behind to get the works done in time, so we’ve had to put planning permission in, look at costs, get architects in to do drawings and all that sort of stuff.”