With our first pre-season fixture coming up on Saturday, we felt it was a good time to share a squad update for supporters.
A key part of the way we build our squad is by ensuring that the majority of players are on contract. This gives them financial security if injured and protects the club from losing them to a 7-day approach — a common risk at this level. Non-contract players are typically announced once league registrations are signed, which happens around this point in pre-season.
The primary objective this summer has been to retain the core of last season’s title-winning squad while adding Ben’s key targets to strengthen the group.
We started the off-season with JT, Joe Ellul and Lee Martin all receiving offers they couldn’t turn down. And while you can never say never in football, it also looks like Jay Leader won’t be playing this season due to changes in his personal life.
Despite that, the squad is very nearly complete.
In terms of recruitment, we’ve had remarkable success. Nearly all of our top targets have signed — many turning down approaches from clubs higher up the pyramid. Aidan Prall has joined from Sheppey with Tom still expected to be sidelined for another six months. Donny, Raphe Brown, Ryan Kingsford and Mitchell May have all committed, and a couple more offers are currently on the table.
From last season’s squad, a number of our contracted players received offers from higher up the pyramid but chose to stay and build on what we’ve started. Tom Hadler and Billy Munday were already on long-term deals, while Tom Clifford, Lewis Gard, TJ, Alfie Paxman and Benny all quickly committed to staying on.
We still have a couple of deals in progress, and there will also be opportunities for some of our talented young players to earn their place through pre-season.
#COYR
