Striker Rowe happy to stay at full-time Fylde

The frontman netted 37 goals last season as the Coasters narrowly missed out on promotion and has caught the eye of several other clubs.

Whilst Rowe admitted it was his dream to play in the Football League one day, he was adamant that he could achieve his goal with his hometown team.

“I feel at home here,” said the 27-year-old. “Every player wants to play as high as they possibly can and obviously if a ridiculous offer came in then that’s something that everyone has to consider.

“At some point in the future I’d love to play in the Football League and ideally I want that to be with Fylde. We all want to improve and that happens by playing at the highest level you can. I have heard the speculation about myself but nothing has interested me even slightly.

“I dropped down a league to come here but my aim remains the same, I want to help get us promoted. Why would I want to move away somewhere when I could potentially achieve my dream right here with my local club?”

As part of the plan to rise up through the leagues, Fylde announced that they will operate on a full-time basis from next season and Rowe is relishing the prospect.

He said: “This shows the intent of the club and where we want to go. It gives the squad more time together to bond and more time on the training pitch so we can all improve.

“It will make a difference to me personally but from being 21 years old up until joining Fylde I was full-time already so I am used to it.

“Some other lads have been full-time before, the likes of Sam Finley, who was full-time at TNS, became part-time to join Fylde and Josh Langley who was at Wigan Athletic.

“So it isn’t completely new to everyone which should help us settle into the new regime. Everyone’s aim when they came to the club was to get Fylde up and go full-time in the process.

“I think it gives the club a real advantage for the future, but as with any decision there is a down side too.

“Some players can’t commit to the step up and we have already lost a few. Tom Hannigan for example has other work commitments and he will be a huge loss”

The Coasters have already released several members of last season’s squad and Rowe believes the team will benefit from new blood.

“Like at any football club I think there needs to be a few changes in the summer,” he admitted.

“We need to add a bit more quality to the side. We want other clubs to look at us and know we have put together a team that will take some stopping.

“If we didn’t go up last year with this squad then we would have struggled this time around with the same squad considering the difficulty of the league.

“There are plenty of very good players out there that are happy to play part-time football because they already have good jobs so that rules out a certain group straight away.

“However, on the flip side there now players on our radar that we could never have signed if we were still part-time. We will obviously have to increase our budget now but it opens up a whole new pool of players.

“There will still be part-time clubs in our league that will pay very good money but in my opinion if you want to progress then full-time is the way to go.”

Fylde have suffered back-to-back play-off disappointments over the last two seasons and Rowe is keen to make sure they make it third time lucky.

He said: “When I first signed the aim was to get promoted and going into the season just gone I’d say everyone in our league would have said we were favourites. So I don’t think going full-time puts on any added pressure.

“It’s definitely a harder league this time around, but I still expect us to be to one of the favourites again.

“We have gone so close twice in a row and we have to make sure we don’t miss out again.”

DANIEL AGNEW