Ryan the benefactor plays leading role in Doncaster's transformation

"No one will mourn the death of our club. Our ramshackle ground will be demolished and replaced by an Asda. You won't miss us. Be honest; how many of you pine for Gateshead, Barrow and Accrington Stanley?"

This was how the Doncaster Rovers fanzine Keegan Was Crap Really summed up the club's relegation from the Football League five years ago. They took their leave in a pitiful state; last by 15 clear points with a goal difference of minus 83. Even the name of the fanzine, harking back to Doncaster's failure to spot the talent in a lad who used to stand behind the goal at Belle Vue, had an aura of hopelessness.

This would have been bad enough without the presence of Ken Richardson, who liked to be known as the club's "benefactor" and who has a fair claim to the hard-fought-for title of football's worst chairman, convicted of attempting to set fire to his own ground so he could sell the land. He might have succeeded had the blaze not been spotted by a passer-by and had the arsonist employed by Richardson not left his mobile phone at the scene.

That until now is all most people remember about Doncaster. Of the last six clubs relegated to the Conference, none until now have returned, and in 1998 Doncaster seemed poorly equipped for the task. However, should they win the first Conference play-off final against Dagenham & Redbridge tomorrow, Doncaster will fulfil John Ryan's grand dream.

Unlike Richardson, Ryan is a genuine benefactor. Owner of the Transform Medical Group, which he sold last year for a reported £20m, Ryan first went to Belle Vue as a seven-year-old to see Jimmy Hill score five times for Fulham in a 6-1 defeat. "I should have known then," he laughs. His ambitions became to own and play for Rovers and to see them regain their League status. If they beat Dagenham, who they have already thrashed 5-1, at Stoke's Britannia Stadium, he will have achieved all three, having at the age of 52 been registered as a player to turn out against Hereford for a few minutes. It will have cost him an estimated £4m.

Before the final he will be outside the Britannia selling shirts to fans, caught up by the transformation of a club which if never great were certainly once pretty good. In their Second Division days of the 1950s, they attracted gates of 22,000 – in one season 112,000 in this corner of Yorkshire went every week to watch Doncaster, Rotherham and both Sheffield sides.

"It's like a salmon coming home," said Ryan. "We have had so many obstacles to overcome and now we are one step away. You have to remember the club's history. We are a bigger town than Blackburn. How many non-League teams once played in front of 60,000 paying customers? If Gillingham, who were a non-League team when we were in the old Second Division, can get to the new First Division, why shouldn't we?"

Many may think Dagenham also have a good case. They have distinguished themselves in the FA Cup and were denied promotion last season only on goal difference. "I think it is a bigger deal to us than to Dagenham," Ryan said. "I think they will always be in the shadow of West Ham, where we can stand alone."

Mickey Walker, the club's assistant manger, was bred in Doncaster and left a job at Nottingham Forest working with Paul Hart for this. "My father played for Rovers; he's 81 now and still got his first wage packet from the club. I know exactly what this means. We weren't ready for it last season but we are now. There's a good blood running through this club."

Ryan will succeed where Richardson failed, although he will use bulldozers rather than petrol to bring down the decrepit Belle Vue, one of the most inaptly named grounds in football.

In March work begins on a 15,000-capacity stadium. Most of the £12m cost has been funded by the town's council after what the Rovers chairman, Trevor Milton, describes as "17 years of negativity" in opposing relocation. "My ambition is for the club to become self-sufficient, so that John can put his chequebook away," said Milton, who, as vice-chairman of Scarborough when Jimmy Glass's goal for Carlisle sent them into the Conference, knows the harsh arithmetic of non-league life. "Money is why so few clubs come back after relegation. At Scarborough our Football League levy brought in £330,000; after relegation, you receive a parachute payment of about £150,000 for one season and then you're on your own – all you get is £8,000.

"It's a terrible drop, it's why so many clubs never recover and it's why without John Ryan there would be no Doncaster Rovers."