Matlock Town boss pleased by squad

He was speaking after the club stepped up pre-season training last weekend following a number of socially distanced training get togethers during the summer.

“It’s been really good, we’ve had two intense sessions on Saturday and Tuesday, everyone’s been fantastic and worked really hard,” he said.

"They’ve done something between 12 and 15 kilometres of running in these sessions and that’s no mean feat at this point of pre-season.”

Matlock currently have six away pre-season fixtures confirmed and have left slots in the schedule to welcome three higher league clubs to the Proctor Cars Stadium.

The provisional home slots are Friday 21 and 28 August and Tuesday 8 September. Currently friendlies taking place before 5 September have to take place behind closed doors due to Covid 19 circumstances.

Town kick off pre-season on August 6 at New Mills in a campaign which includes games against before Wythenshawe Town, Brighouse Town, Clipstone, Sheffield FC and Tamworth.

“I’ve been inundated with requests to play us, but I think we’ve got a good mix of games,” said Phillips.

“It’s good to play the professional teams from the club’s point of view and with the finance they can bring in from good crowds, but I like to see how we fare in games against the non league sides which replicates what we’re likely to come up against week in, week out when the season starts.

"The lower division teams will push you to the limit and will be keen to show what they can do against you and then we’ve got the two games against the NPL First Division sides plus Tamworth which will be an excellent test for us.

"We start out at New Mills, I’m great friends with their management team and I think they’ll provide a really good game to start us off.”

On player recruitment, Phillips expressed his satisfaction with the progress made to date with twelve new players on the books so far with more to come.

Matlock hope to confirm two more outfield additions shortly plus a second goalkeeper and are presently talking to another midfielder who Phillips would not name, but has been captain of Manchester City uU21’s.

“I’m more than happy with where we are and I’ve been speaking with a ball playing midfielder who was captain of the under 21’s at Manchester City fairly recently,” he said.

"If we can get him it’ll be good for us for he’ll add another dimension with him being good on the ball and he’d be the type of player we’d need in tight games when we’re looking to unlock the opposing defence.”

But for one Matlock midfielder, it’s a tale of woe.

After picking up an ankle injury and not playing since the 2-1 defeat at Scarborough Athletic in January, Jack Rea reported back in a positive mood but his plans were soon in disarray as Phillips explained.

“Jack came back and was raring to go, he’d followed the off season programmes we’d set to a tee only to twist his knee and he needs an ACL operation,” he said.

"He’d worked really hard and my heart goes out to him. We don’t know when the operation will be but we’ll all support him as much as we can.”

In other news, Alfreton Town have announced the signing of defender Dwayne Wiley who had spent four seasons with the Gladiators and Matlock have extended their early bird season ticket deadline by a fortnight to August 14. From 1 August fans will be able to order goods from the Club Shop online. Further details can be found on the official club website www.matlocktownfc.co.uk or on the club’s social media outlets.

Ian Richardson