Players keen to put themselves on Slough’s radar by impressing at trial
With the extra time afforded to them following the cancellation of the season, Neil Baker and Jon Underwood have been taking in the club’s u23s matches, watching National League and other non-league games and have also been ‘keeping their ears to the ground’ with regards the possibility of bringing in new talent.
On that front, the club will hold a trial match next Thursday for players currently playing at steps 3-5.
Slough received more than 250 applications to attend and they have been whittled down to 28 who’ve been invited to take part.
Should a few impress they’ll be invited back for training sessions and should get the chance to further impress in pre-season.
“We’ve had an awful lot of applications, more than 250, and they’ve been whittled down to 28 that we’ll be looking at on the evening,” said Baker. “There will be a number of us involved. First team players will be there, myself, Jon (Underwood), our scouting team of Micky Woodham and Paul Barry, Trent (Phillips, goalkeeping coach) will also be there.
“We’ll be keeping our eyes open to see if something comes out of the trial match.
“If it does, brilliant, but it might be that some of the players we see will just go onto our radar to keep an eye on for the future.
“They might be young and not quite ready for this level yet. There are two that have been invited from the u23s team and maybe more will be invited to play in preseason. Two in particular impressed us while others have given themselves a chance.
“I enjoy having the u23s squad there. Ashley has done a brilliant job with them and it’s run very professionally. It’s a pleasure to be associated with it.”
On Thursday’s trial event, he added: “If anyone impresses, we’ll invite them in for some training sessions and we’ll go from there.
“It’s unlikely we’ll see someone in the game and offer them a deal there and then, but you never know. “You’ve got to be open to anything really.
“A number of players are coming up from steps three to five and you don’t know what you’re going to get, but we’ve picked up players from step five in the past and we have to be open to looking at anyone.”