Firstly, before I talk about Darlaston Town 1874;s week, everyone connected with the club would like to congratulate Wednesfield Town on their successful appeal to the FA regarding their promotion to the Premier Division after finishing runners up in Division 1 last season, following a ground inspection by an independent FA appointed inspector the FA confirmed the ground is of the required standard. Whilst, we are sorry to see you leave the division and will miss the local derby’s next season, we would hope to be joining you so we can once again renew our friendly rivalry.

The second week of pre-season has now finished and the manager and his coaches are now going to have to make some extremely difficult and almost impossible decisions when deciding which players to sign, every session has seen more than 20 players attend, more than three quarters attending every session. Manager Andy said, “The effort and willingness to work has been nothing other than top notch, very little or no moaning from the group, usually players want less running and more ball work, not this pre-season, however the closer we get to the pre-season games the ball will be coming out more often.”

The club photographer Jayne Cartwright from Coven Photography visited the Paycare ground on Tuesday evening, Jayne commented “I was amazed to see so many players at training and they were certainly working hard”. Whilst at the ground Jayne managed to take some photographs of the session, a selection of these can be found by clicking

http://www.darlastontown1874fc.com/photos/pre-season-training-20th-june-2017-754504.html

Both Thursday night sessions taken by Craig Timmins a specialist Fitness Trainer have been particularly brutal, there were even tractor tyres involved in this week’s torture session Assistant Manager Tomo who returned from holiday this week in readiness for Thursdays training said “Whilst I have been lounging on the beach, the lads have obviously been working extremely hard, the level of fitness in the group is impressive and should put us in a great position in the last quarter of matches during the season.

Manager Andy informed me this week “we will continue to train three times a week until the season starts on 5th August, this is in addition to the midweek pre-season matches, so the players will be in peak condition ready for when the serious matches start, as its vital we get off to a good start”

In mentioning pre-season matches, I have to unfortunately advise you there have been some changes to the fixtures published matches approximately 10 days ago, once all the arrangements have been confirmed the club will announce the date, venue and opposition of the six matches early next week.

Whilst the training sessions continue next week, off the pitch it will be a busy week, the West Midlands (Regional) League’s dinner is on Saturday evening at Walsall Football Club, but more importantly the League AGM takes place on Monday evening given Wednesfield’s promotion , the resignation of FC Stafford and West Bromwich United following their promotion last season, the Division looks very low on numbers and we would expect the League to announce how many teams will be in Division 1 next season, also at the meeting the player registration form will be released to the clubs, so as player registrations can be submitted from the 1st July for the forthcoming season.

Finally I mentioned earlier the hard decisions Andy and his team will be making over the next few days regarding which players will be invited to join the squad for the season, most of us expect the bulk to be made up of last season’s Darlaston squad, together with players that helped West Bromwich United achieve promotion at their first attempt from Division 2 and also win the League Cup, however don’t be shocked if Andy springs a few surprises in his selections. We would expect to start announcing some signings toward the end of next week as always it will be published firstly on our website with social media following shortly afterwards

#@DarloTown1874FC #Darloaywe!