AFC Wimbledon are ready for the promotion to the Football League according to chairman Erik Samuelson.

The Dons were only formed in their current guise nine years ago but have risen rapidly up the non-league pyramid to top the Blue Square Premier with just 12 games to go.

Despite their relatively short life, Samuelson insists playing in League Two would not be too much too soon and they can cope with the life back among England's top four divisions.

"It is never too soon," said Samuelson.

"No good runner goes into a race thinking I won't try and win this one and will come third.

"We are ready pitchwise and stadiumwise with all the plans in place and are currently filling in the forms to the football league saying what we are doing about the shortfalls at Kingsmeadow.

"The obvious people to go up would be Luton Town and Crawley Town and then we would be in the next best teams in the league.

"Then there are teams that will strengthen even more next season, like York City, Fleetwood Town and Wrexham, and then there are the teams coming down and some strong teams coming up.

"All that means next season will be a battle so lets gets promoted and get out of the league and then it is all about surviving in League Two."

Crawley remain favourites for the automatic spot being just three points behind Wimbledon with five games in hand, but Samuelson insists the play-offs have always been the aim, though he is only now beginning to believe they could get there.

"Did I expect to be here at the start of the season? Did I hell," he said.

"But once you get to the top you want to stay there.

"All season I have been saying we will do well to get into the play-offs.

"Now we have started getting the official notification from the conference to the teams that might be in the play-offs telling us to start thinking about how we are to do it and organise it and that makes you think that maybe they are not that far away.

"The respective budgets at the other teams in the top five are much higher than us so we are, as Terry Brown likes to say, punching above our weight.

"We have done incredibly well to still be at the top after 34 games and we have got reason to be proud, especially Terry, of what we have achieved this season with a young squad.

"The play-offs have always been my focus but I am still very cautious."