NEW Alloa Athletic goalkeeper Neil Parry is convinced he can help the club get straight back to the SPFL Championship with promotion next season.

The former Airdrie and Albion Rovers keeper joined the club last week and he believes the Wasps are the perfect fit for him.

Jack Ross is a young manager with a growing reputation within the game and the new shot-stopper admits he cannot wait to work under him in the coming season.

Parry told Advertiser Sport: “Airdrie made the decision to go full time toward the end of last season, so that wasn’t a possibly for me with a career and a young family so I knew I would be moving on. Alloa have been one of the most successful part time clubs for the past five years so when Jack gave me a call and with his growing reputation as a manager, then it was an easy decision for me to make to join here. Literally everyone I spoke to only had nice things to say about the manager and the football club so it all seemed to click into place for me.

“Now that I am signed up, I just cannot wait to get started and giving it a real good go. The only ambition at this football club is to get promotion and be back up in the Championship. It will be a difficult challenge and we will have to work hard to show that we deserve it, but I think under Jack, we couldn’t have a better man at the helm and so there is no doubt we can go the whole way.

“We already have plenty experience in the squad of playing at the Championship level for the past three years and for a part time club that was an unbelievable achievement so hopefully some of the lads can put that experience to great use and help us kick on. I couldn’t be happier with the move and it is the perfect match for me.”

Parry revealed that he has done his homework on the club before joining after working under three former Wasps connections in Darren Young, James Ward and Danny Lennon.

The new number one is also hopeful his experience of playing in League One can be crucial to firing them toward the title in the coming season.

He said: “I have worked under a few former Wasps. Darren Young was a young manager who came in at Albion Rovers and did really well. He has done amazing there in his first job and whenever I spoke to him about clubs, he always spoke highly of Alloa. James Ward was obviously here as well and I enjoyed working under him at Albion too. We had a great cup run where we beat Motherwell before losing in the quarter finals to Rangers. I also worked with Danny Lennon last season and I had a good relationship with so I am well versed in all things Alloa coming in here.

“I hope my experience in this league will be crucial to helping the team in the coming season. It will be a league full of my former teams with Queen’s Park, Albion Rovers and Airdrie all in League One so it will be a competitive one to play in. There will be two full time teams with Livingston and Airdrie so we know it will be highly competitive, but having spoken to Jack, I know this club has the ideas of a full time club so I am hopeful of a successful season. I had a taster of the promotion picture as we just missed out with Airdrie on the playoffs so hopefully at Alloa we can go on and go win further to win the league.”

The former Queen's Park star revealed how the ambitions of both the manager and the club for next season were made clear to him from the outset.

Parry added: “The manager has made it clear to me so I am under no illusions that we will be looking to challenge for promotion in the coming season or even win the league so that in itself was a big attraction for coming here. It is very appealing to join a team who is going to be up there competing and have that sort of drive so it is up the players to justify being one of the favourites now and I can’t wait to play my part in that.”