Boss hoping lack of match practice won’t hit start

Bexhill United manager Marc Munday is hoping his team won’t suffer from a lack of match practice at the start of its league programme.
Marc Munday is preparing to embark on his second season as Bexhill United managerMarc Munday is preparing to embark on his second season as Bexhill United manager
Marc Munday is preparing to embark on his second season as Bexhill United manager

The Pirates will begin their campaign in the newly-named Macron Store Southern Combination Football League Division One (formerly Sussex County League Division Two) with a trip to Oakwood on Saturday.

But they will make the journey north off the back of just two full first team pre-season friendlies, partly due to a lack of available pitches in the locality.

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Munday said: “I’m not taking it as a negative yet. If we get spanked for the first few games I’ll be honest and say, but I’m hoping it’s not going to be a problem.

“I feel we’re ready to go, but you can do all the running on the beach and whatever you want - match fitness is a completely different thing.

“I think in the first game of the season our lads are going to be blowing a bit, but by Tuesday night (when Bexhill visit Seaford Town), I think we’ll probably be at the match fitness level we would be if we had a full pre-season fixture list.”

Despite the paucity of warm-up matches, Munday has been pleased with the approach of his players in training under the eye of new assistant boss Marc Gall.

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“Every single training session I’ve had a full squad, and myself and Ginge (Gall) are very pleased with the way things are going,” he went on.

Bexhill have brought in Jack Woodward, who has previously been at Little Common, and Munday was hoping to sign a couple more players last night (Wednesday), plus a further one in time for the Seaford game.

Allan McMinigal has put pen to paper, but is likely to spend the bulk of the season playing local football.

Bexhill eventually finished sixth last term after flirting with the top three for much of the season, but Munday believes the division will be stronger in 2015/16.

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“I feel that league is a damn sight harder than it was last year,” he added. “There’s some good sides in that league and there’s a lot of money floating about judging by the offers some of my lads have had from other clubs.

“We want to finish as high as possible. My first job is not getting relegated. When we’re not relegated, we can move on and week by week we can set a new target.

“We’d love to be up there, but it’s a tough league. It’s an exciting place and we’re under no pressure to do anything.”

* BEXHILL’S FA Cup extra preliminary round tie against Loxwood on Saturday August 15 will be played at Eastbourne United AFC (kick-off 3pm).

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