THE only pressure on me is the pressure I put on myself to be successful. External pressures don't really be bother me," says Darlington manager Dave Penney.

Just as well then, because from 3pm tomorrow Quakers must be in contention for promotion and anything less than a League One place come next May would represent utter failure.

Regardless of what he says publicly, Penney is well aware that ambitious chairman George Houghton wants promotion - and he wants it yesterday.

He has not handed Penney a budget of over £2m - higher than that afforded to David Hodgson last season - to see the team muck about in mid-table.

Houghton demonstrated his desire last summer with the £100,000 capture of Julian Joachim, along with a further eight signings.

And 12 months later he's permitted Penney to bring in 11 more, including another £100,000 striker in Pawel Abbott.

Coping with the expectations of others is nothing new to a man who throughout his four-year tenure at Doncaster Rovers worked under a similarly ambitious chairman in John Ryan.

Penney's brief was to take Rovers back into the Football League from the Nationwide Conference and that he did with a flourish, winning back-to-back promotions and achieving the club's highest league position for 50 years.

That came during 2005/06 in League One, a season in which Penney became the focus of national exposure with a Carling Cup run which saw off the challenge of Aston Villa, Manchester City and very nearly Arsenal.

But Penney refuses to promise a repeat performance at Darlington, instead preferring to point out that promotion at Doncaster was five years in the making.

He said: "They (Houghton and Ryan) are both the same. They're both multi-millionaires, they've both been successful in their businesses and now want to be successful in football.

"But it took us five years to get out of the Conference at Doncaster.

These things take time, you can't just chuck money at it and think it's going to happen overnight because there are 23 other teams all trying to get out of the division too.

"It's not a given that promotion is going to happen.

We've just got to keep building.

"In the summer before we first got promotion at Doncaster I only added about four or five bodies because we had already been heading in the right direction.

"And when we got back into the Football League I signed two or three, plus a few loans, but there was certainly no massive change around like we've had here - we were already good enough.

"This is the first time I've had a mass change around like this but within two or three weeks of being at Darlington I knew I would have to do it.

"As well as the squad, we've got to get the training centre right, get the scouting network set-up right - it's a culmination of everything which is aimed at getting things right on the football pitch.

"From what I've seen, at this club the football team hasn't always been the first thing on the agenda."

The unbridled success at Doncaster prompted Ryan to create a club motto for last season: destination Championship. Six games into the campaign and Penney had walked.

Such grand predictions clearly do not sit well with the former bricklayer from Castleford.

Darlington may well be among the bookies' favourites for the League Two title, but Penney, for the time being at least, says he is setting his sights much lower.

"I want to get to 52 points as soon as we can because if you do that it means you aren't going down. If you do that as quickly as possible you can then build on it,"

he said.

"That's just the way I work. It's no good singing from the rooftops you're going to do this and you're going to do that because you can easily fall flat on your face.

"You can set yourself up to be shot at and the opposition can try that bit harder to beat you.

"It's best to just get on with your work quietly and efficiently and see where it takes you."

As long as it takes Darlington into League One, Houghton and the supporters will have no complaints.