I would like to welcome the committee, management, players and supporters making the trip across to us for these matches. We all hope you have a safe journey and enjoy your visits.

At time of writing these notes, pre-season has been largely untroubled for us. We have really felt the benefit of training that extra day and on a grass surface, and we’ve worked really hard on distinctive patterns in training, re-visiting and embracing that ‘total’ footballing style we have became renowned for over the years. There is still plenty of work to do, but I feel we are making good progress. I’ve been delighted with the new signings, particularly Brennan Camp with his professionalism and how he has taken to the club, but Jordan Norville-Williams, Harrison Foulkes and Rhys Murphy have all integrated brilliantly as well. Nursing certain players back from injury and to full fitness from the end of the last campaign into pre-season has been a key thing for us – Dan Gallagher, Dan Pybus, Aaron Kuhl, George Francomb, Tony Craig, Seb Bowerman and Matt Briggs – it was a fairly long list of key individuals, but as it stands all are making good progress and are on schedule, which is a real positive.

Whilst the focus for pre-season matches is to build fitness, develop what we’ve been doing in training and experiment with different ideas and options, it’s good to get back to winning habits along the way, and through out first three pre-season matches away from home we’ve done that so far with victories over Poole Town, Leatherhead in the Advertiser Trophy and Redhill FC. The strikers, including Rhys, are all up and running in terms of goals and I’ve been pleased with our performances overall.

We look forward to drawing battle lines with former Maidstone manager Hakan once again as he brings his Dulwich Hamlet side across for the first of these home pre-season friendlies on July 20th. Fellow Surrey club Farnham Town come to Meadowbank the following Saturday, after a remarkable season last year they visit us as part of their preparations ahead of an inaugral campaign at Step 4, and in Rushall Olympic we face National League North opposition for our final pre-season fixture ahead of the opening game of the season getting under way down at Truro on August 10th!

I’m really looking forward to hearing and seeing you all again at Meadowbank in the next few weeks. I believe, in our 25th anniversary year, this is going to be a very exciting season for us, and the preparation for that continues with this run of home games into the month of August.

Never write off the Wanderers!

MARC