THESE are exciting times for Bethnal Green United, the Mile End Stadium-based club hoping to one day bring Conference football to East London. Bethnal Green will play in the FA Vase for the first time in the coming season and have aspirations to enter the

THESE are exciting times for Bethnal Green United, the Mile End Stadium-based club hoping to one day bring Conference football to East London.

Bethnal Green will play in the FA Vase for the first time in the coming season and have aspirations to enter the FA Cup for the first time in season 2010-11.

Having won the Middlesex Senior League last season, they are playing in the Essex Senior League in the new campaign - step five of the national league system.

The club will field a reserve team for the first time this season, who will replace the first-team as members of the Middlesex Senior League, while there were will be two under 18 teams wearing the club's green shirts - one competing in the Eastern Alliance and the other in the Echo Youth League.

Bethnal Green began life in the year 2000 with 20 members. Now they have 200 members and a backroom staff of around 20 volunteers. The club fields eight teams between the age of eight and senior men.

Chairman Mohammed Nurul Hoque says that all the hard work everyone connected with the club has put in has been rewarded with growth both off and on the pitch.

"We have a lot of support in difficult times,'' he says. "Particularly from our main sponsor the Canary Wharf Group and DVS Motors and Tower Hamlets Council for the continued use of Mile End Stadium, which is an FA graded F category stadium and enables us to play in level 5 of the football pyramid.''

"The club is committed to providing football coaching within a disadvantaged community and we have a wide ranging programme to achieve this,'' says Mr Hoque.