Gearing up for the new season

HINCKLEY AFC’s boss Carl Abbott has stressed that he won’t be looking to make wholesale changes to his squad ahead of their pre-season fixtures starting this weekend.

The Midland League side have been busy preparing for preseason at their training ground with Abbott keen on working with the players that he has at his disposal, rather than signing more.

So far 16 players have been retained, with triallists from the Duke of Rutland Football Club and other players invited to take part in pre-season friendlies.

Abbott said: “Continuity is key this season, we want to pick up where we left off, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel as there were lots of positives at the end of last season.

“We have some opportunities for youngsters from the Duke of Rutland football team to sprinkle that little something of what we’re missing, but we already have 16 registered players.

“I’d rather work with my core squad and have my key players fit.”

Hinckley AFC’s preseason gets underway against Heather St John’s this Saturday before playing Quorn and Sporting Khalsa within the week.

Despite believing the team could do with an extra week of pre-season before their fixtures start, assistant manager Paul Tomlinson believes the new facilities will help his team to the next level.

He said: “Part of the problem is we had no where to train.

“We had stuff we wanted to work on and no facility to do that.

“This season with this great facility we’ve got, we can get all the hard work in now in the first two or three weeks and when the friendlies start we can start to work on individual players.”

Hinckley AFC’s fixture against Heather St Johns will take place at their home ground of Heather St John FC on Saturday July 9.