Stevenage were many people's surprise package in League One last season but manager Alex Revell says they just proved they deserve to be at the level.
A tilt at the play-offs in England's third tier only ended late on as results began to fall away.
However, the Boro boss says despite the likes of Birmingham city, Huddersfield Town, Rotherham United and Wrexham joining the division, nobody will have looked at a trip to the Lamex and thought of an easy three points.
Revell said: "I think you can go through every division now and say ‘what a league that is’. It's all the way through.
"There's big teams in League One but there were big teams in there last year and ultimately, it's about what we do at these places we have to learn.
"There's going to be different challenges, but it's about what we do.
"Last year, it was about what we did at start of the season. People were surprised by us.
"What happened towards the end of the season was teams actually changed the way they played, changed the way they set up, just to come to Stevenage because they knew it was going to be a difficult place to come and play their type of football.
"That's what we want. We want every game to be like that. We'll go to places and won't have to prove people wrong anymore because we've [already] proved people wrong.
"We deserve to be where we are. We deserve to be in this league and people will be looking now and thinking Stevenage is a tough, tough away game.
"We've got to make sure we deliver our best performances because if we do, it's going to be a brilliant season.
"But that's why we do it, to compete against top teams, top coaches and top players. That's what your drive is and it has to be our drive.
"We're excited to get going again and start to build to what's going to be hopefully a really successful and fun season."
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