June/July 2014

This pre-season turned out to be the toughest in terms of signing players. There seemed to be a distinct lack of talent available or willing to come to the club, and therefore only four players were brought in before the start of the season. The first to join was 22-year-old central midfielder Mitchell McPike, who had been released from the Glenn Hoddle Academy at the end of the previous season. It was a good signing, but we now had a clear abundance of central midfielders, with Lewis Montrose, David Fox and Michael Noone all vying for places in the starting line-up. However, that can only be a good thing I suppose.

My scouts were working overtime; collecting reports on literally hundreds of players, the majority of whom were either not good enough, or not interested in a move to AFC Telford. The England Trial Day wasn't a success either; after scouting every player who had been involved in the two games, nobody was signed. I decided to turn my attention to the loan market, and managed to bring in a trio of youngsters on season-long loans; Hereford's 21-year-old left winger Jordan Watson, Northampton's 23-year-old striker Joe Benjamin and West Brom's 18-year-old full back Sam Pitman. Watson, a Northern Ireland youth international, would provide Netan Sansara with some competition, whilst Benjamin would add pace and stamina to our ever-ageing forward line, as both Denis Behan and Richard Offiong were now 30.

In terms of outgoing transfers, the club was quite busy. Some notable players who followed Graham Coughlan out of the club were Matthew Duffy and Adrian Nevins, who signed for Hednesford and Morecambe respectively. Jon Adams, Andy McPherson, Matt Henry, Paul Gower and Robert Slater had also reached the end of their contract and were released on free transfers.

We had six scheduled friendly matches, the first of which was against, as usual, Glenn Hoddle's Academy. We won 3-1, with goals from Lewis Alessandra, Denis Behan and Michael Noone. This was followed by a 3-1 defeat at home to Stockport, then a battling 1-0 win against Leyton Orient, in which respectively, Lewis Alessandra and Michael Noone scored. A predictable heavy loss against our parent club Aston Villa was next (6-0) but that was followed by our own heavy win; a 5-0 victory against our feeder club Canvey Island, in which Behan (2), Alessandra, Jake Simpson and Mitchell McPike scored. The final friendly brought us up against Bristol City Reserves, and we won 2-1 with goals from McPike and Ryan Charles.

We were predicted to finish mid-table and given odds of 33-1 to win the league. However, I told the board that promotion would be the season's aim. August will see the league fixtures begin, and everyone at the club is raring to go and up for another impressive season, but hopefully this time we'll have something to show for our efforts.