Terry Harris admits it is 'hard to believe' how close Dagenham & Redbridge have come to a League One spot.
Assistant manager delighted to be on brink of League One
Dagenham & Redbridge assistant manager Terry Harris admits it is 'hard to believe' how close his side have come to a spot in League One.
Harris has been with the club for over a decade and has seen them ascend through the leagues since John Still took the helm in 2004.
The Daggers will take on Rotherham in the play-off final at Wembley on Sunday, and Harris admits he is amazed at how far they have come in such little time.
Incentive
"Playing in League One is a massive incentive and it is hard to believe," said Harris.
"A decade ago we were mid-table in the Ryman League and next season we could be playing in the same division as Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton and Charlton.
"Back in those days there were 20-30 non-league clubs in the south-east who were similar in size and support to ourselves.
"But we are the only ones who have gone on to establish ourselves as a Football League side and now we could even be a League One team. It's remarkable."
After finishing seventh in the final League Two standings, the Daggers saw off Morecambe 7-2 on aggregate in the semi-finals, and Harris insists there is no reason why the Millers should go into the Wembley showdown as favourites.
"We qualified as the seventh and last-placed side, but there was only one point between all four sides," he added.
"You only have to see what Blackpool achieved last weekend (in the Championship play-off final) to see that the lowest-placed side are never at a disadvantage.
"In fact, there is a real run of success for lowest-placed sides."
Rotherham manager Ronnie Moore, who returned for a second stint in charge at the Yorkshire club in September, guided them to back-to-back promotions from the third tier to the Championship and kept them there for four years on his first spell at the helm of the club.
But the Millers boss insists success at Wembley on Sunday would outshine all of his previous accomplishments.
Success
"It will probably be the best of the promotions for me in the way that we have had to do it," said Moore.
"Where we are, for the players to produce the togetherness they have, I think that would be the best of all the promotions we've had.
"We've got our offices in Rotherham, we train in Doncaster and play in Sheffield, there's not many teams that have to put up with that. So for our lads to get themselves 90 minutes away from promotion shows what an achievement it's been for them."
