With the season starting tomorrow, preparations are well underway for our 4th season in the NCEL Division One. It was no secret that we applied to move sideways to the East Midlands Counties League but we were rejected on appeal, even after FC Bolsover resigned from that league.

With that news in mind we moved quickly to appoint former Swallownest and Harworth manager Lee Needham to become and assistant manager and coach at the club. We feel this has been a great bit of business especially with Lee having a good knowledge of players from those surrounding areas.

There have been a few players coming and going and most significantly was Gav King who has decided to join Maltby Main in the NCEL prem. I’d like to go on record and thank Gav for the two seasons he gave us at Ollerton, 60 goals in 90 games is some achievement but so is 90 games in two seasons. Gav was one of the most committed player you’d ever wish to meet, he gave his all for the club and of course will be missed. He's a top lad who we wish every success to and I have no doubt that he will go into score plenty of goals for Maltby.

Other than that we have managed to retain the majority of our squad and have added some great quality, most notably goal keeper Levi Owen who was voted one of the leagues top performers last season. Levi has settled in well and has had a great pre-season. Other signings include Lewis Murr, George Slack, Ben Partridge, Ash McEwan plus several under 18 players - welcome to the club lads.

Having an under 18 team join us is a big bonus to us and we already have a great relationship in place with the manager Rich Walker and several of the players have tasted 1st team action over the summer.

Overall pre-season has gone very well, we’re undefeated but you know as well as me that that means diddly squat come 3pm tomorrow afternoon.

Cheers
Dave