Last year’s successful season culminated in Yeovil Town securing a place in the second tier of The FA WSL, but their success came as no shock to manager Sarah Lawler.
Having gained promotion to The FA Women’s Premier League Southern Division the previous year, the club more than held their own with a strong third-place finish.
Champions Reading and Millwall Lionesses finished above them but such was the strength of the trio both on and off the field that all three saw their WSL applications approved.
FA WSL 2 line-up
Aston Villa, Doncaster Rovers Belles, Durham, London Bees, Millwall Lionesses, Oxford, Reading, Sunderland, Watford, Yeovil Town
The club also proved equally adept in the cup competitions, progressing out of the group stages of The FA Women’s Premier League Cup before being knocked out in the Fifth Round of The FA Women’s Cup by Leeds.
But while their continued progress last season may have raised a few eyebrows to those on the outside, Lawler insists her team were always confident of putting in a strong showing.
She said: "It was very much our ambition to get back in the Premier League and make an impact which is what we did.
"I have high standards, as do the team, and I wanted them to finish up the top end of the table, I think there were a couple of people that didn’t expect that from us but we were confident.
"There were some really good performances throughout the season, beating Barnet and Portsmouth 3-0 in The FA Cup and keeping a clean sheet was great.
"And then we got to within one game of the quarter finals in the League Cup, the furthest we have managed during my time in charge, before losing to Leeds in the first of two defeats to them."
Having started the season with a 3-1 win against Lewes before three successive draws, it was after Christmas that the team really kicked on and finished the season in style with a 4-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion on the last day.
The game came shortly after the club heard of their successful application to the WSL and Lawler admits their performance proved a great marker of how far they had come during the season.
She added: "We had lost to them 2-1 at home earlier in the season but the team really came together and it was a complete performance on the last day.
"With having just got the license, people were looking at us and thinking ‘who are they, what did they do to get that?’ But to get a result like that showed them this is what we can do."
