LAST season they were staring at relegation and now they are setting their sights on winning a double.

Cheers and celebrations rang out for one Southampton women’s football club when they secured promotion yesterday.

Southampton Women’s Football Club will be playing in the next tier of women’s football after they finished the season top of their league.

More than 100 people were at Totton’s Testwood Stadium to see the players achieve success on the pitch after the squad lost just one league match this season.

The club, which has been around for 45 years, beat Wycombe Wanderers in a thriller which ended 4-2 enabling them to be crowned champions of the First Division – Northern tier in the Southern Region Women's Football League.

With one game left to play against Andover New Street Ladies FC they assured of a place in the Premier tier of the same league when they finished the season with 40 points.

And in three weeks’ time they could be looking at even more silverware when they take on Oxford City in the Southern Region Women's Football League cup.

Manager Fran Alonso said it was a “massive turnaround” for the club adding that they had only secured one point in nine games when he joined the club in 2014.

“They were struggling,” he said. The fact that I worked for Southampton FC brought some enthusiasm to the girls. The club started to change.

“This year we’ve totally changed.”

Sunday afternoon saw the team score their first goal in the 21st minute when Sheree Bell-Jack put the ball in the back of the opposition’s net.

Eight minutes later Jane Yeates made it 2-0 but by 60 minutes Wycombe had pulled two back to equalise.

Player of the match Darcey Read volleyed the ball from just inside the box into the top of the net in the 85th minute.

The fourth and final goal came when Karleen Hellard received the ball back from Read and flicked it just around the goalkeeper to make it 4-2.

Beating teams in clubs in tiers above them for other competitions, they are now setting their sights on returning to the dizzy heights of women’s football.

Fran said they have an “ambitious” target to get a second promotion next year to the Women’s Premier League.

“Yes, I’m quite ambitious but I’m very passionate and I give everything 110 per cent.”

He added: “I felt we would get promotion to be honest. I doesn’t surprise me that we have been promoted. The way we have played has exceeded my expectations.”