Ricky Ravenhill has urged City to keep building on the “frightening potential” at the club as they relish the prospect of playing League One football again.
The club captain chalked up his fourth promotion as the Bantams finally ended six years of hurt in the basement division.
Ravenhill has seen a major transformation since he first came to Valley Parade on loan from Notts County 18 months ago – and he believes they must continue to build on the Wembley success and look to push on.
He said: “I’ve been here from the not-so-good times to the incredible ones. It’s changed rapidly.
“But we’re trying to maintain standards now. We don’t want to be a rollercoaster team and keep going up and down.
“We want to have another good season next year. We’ll enjoy this achievement but not get carried away with it.”
This is the third time that Ravenhill has savoured promotion from the fourth tier. The 32-year-old midfielder was also part of the Doncaster team that returned to the Football League from the Conference.
He said: “This one probably pips the rest. The others have been special for different reasons, and Donny are my home-town club, but what we’ve achieved over the whole season is unbelievable.
“The size of the fanbase and the stadium pulls a lot of people to the club and we’ve seen how good it can be.
“It has turned round massively from when I first came here to how it is now and that can still get even better.
“When you see how many went to Wembley, you realise you could be filling the stadium week in, week out. The potential is frightening.”
Ravenhill was delighted to see Phil Parkinson and his coaching staff finally sign three-year deals last week. The planning for the new season is already underway.
He said: “It’s nice as players to know that your manager is committed to the cause. He’s preparing for next year and we’ve got to do the same.
“Obviously we can go away and have a rest but we’ve also got to keep ourselves ticking over to come back right for pre-season.
“There’s a strong sense within the lads that if we can keep more or less the same group and add a little bit of quality, then we can push on. We feel we’re good enough to go on and maybe have another challenge next year.
“You never know how things will go. But we’ll come back positive and there’s no reason why we can’t be at the top end of the table.”
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