THE owner of The New Saints, Mike Harris, says the club’s European group stage qualification is the result of a successful long-term plan.

Craig Harrison’s men secured their place in the draw for the UEFA Conference League group stage in Monaco on Friday.

He admitted the realisation of his dream to dining at Europe’s top table left him floating and said he was looking forward to the draw.

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“It’s surreal,” he said.

“I wasn’t over nervous after last week but with 20 minutes to go, I thought ‘oh no’, this has all kicked in and I’ll take 0-0 or I’ll even take 1-0 to them.

“I just want to get it over and done with and it started to kick in then.

“Okay, I might have known with five minutes to go after I tried to start a chant but I was trying to encouraging my mate’s kids to start a chant too.

“We’re going to Monaco from here.

“It’s not about the money because we’ve always tried to balance the books and give value to people and do things properly.

“We try to have the Academy – we could have paid other players more money but we’ve chosen to stick to our guns with academy, youth and first team.

“We’re blending the budget across all levels and if we do that then it’ll take a long time to knock us off our perch.”

Harris insisted that TNS reaching the dreamland of league phase football can only but be a good thing for football in Wales.

He added: “Our league needs someone to go into that groups stage because that means others clubs will get sponsorship.

“The people of Wales need to realise that there is a competition they can get behind and not think ‘this is no good, we’ll just lose in the Faroe Islands’.

“If we compete we might get something.

“We’re in Pot 4 and that means there are two pots worse than us – I’m more interested in making sure we win those two games.”

Ian Williams, Harris’s trusted lieutenant and chief operating officer at TNS, was delighted.

He said: “It’s a dream come true – it’s been a long journey but it’s always been our ambition to reach this stage.

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“We’re just so pleased, from the playing staff to the guys off the pitch and we’ve done so well to do this.

“We’re just looking forward to Monaco!

“The last eight weeks have been immense with a match every week but I’m not complaining as it’s all been worthwhile.”