"PEOPLE said we had a dream to bring a football league club back to Newport, but we weren't dreamers. It was a mission and now we are 90 minutes away from making it mission accomplished."

That's the view of Newport County AFC president David Hando ahead of his beloved County's trip to Wembley to face Wrexham in the Blue Square Bet Conference play-off final on Sunday.

It will be the first chance the club has had to return to the Football League since the old Newport County went bust, forcing 400 loyal supporters to reform the club in its current form as Newport County AFC in 1989.

Mr Hando, said: "My mind goes back to a hot June night at the Lysaghts Institute, 400 people crammed in there, all determined not to leave the town without a major football club."

He says on Sunday all those people, particularly "those sadly no longer with us" will be in his mind at Wembley.

People like Ray Taylor, who died last year, are name checked but so is the former chairman Chris Blight, who Mr Hando says was responsible for eradicating the £200,000 debt the club incurred during its second period in exile in Gloucester after County defied the Football Association of Wales (FAW) and refused to play in the league of Wales.

It took three trips to the High Court, where County eventually won a ruling against the FAW for restriction of trade, before the club finally moved back to Newport for good.

Originally, the club formed after meeting at the Lysaghts was forced to Moreton-in-Marsh, Worcestershire, to play in the Hellenic League as the FAW would not recognise them and said they had to start in the parks leagues, while Newport council thought they were the old Newport County, who owed around £800,000 to various creditors in debts, in disguise and barred them from Somerton Park.

That journey and those tough decisions now appear to have been vindicated Mr Hando feels.

"There were people who said it was a mad idea to go into exile - I knew that but there was always that hope of progress."

And Mr Hando is optimistic Sunday could be the day his and his colleagues' hard work pays off.

"It will make all that time and effort, not to mention money, worth it. As I said, it could be mission accomplished."