Craig Priest reviews the last weeks news from the One Call Stadium... The countdown clock is ticking, this time next week it will be astalevesta wrapping up the news and hello match preview as pre-season kicks off with a trip to Leamington FC. Earlier today we announced our coverage for pre-season and this week at the One Call Stadium it’s been all about fixtures and fittings, as the fixture list was revealed and we welcomed yet another face to the squad and the lads back to pre-season training. Kicking things off on the players final day of rest, Monday, was the news our class of 2012-13 would be starting the season with a home match against FA Trophy runners up Newport County before ending the season on home soil with a match against promotion rivals Wrexham. Personally I think the fixture list has been very kind to us this time around, with only six midweek away games scheduled and only three of them long distance, spread out over the course of the season which doesn’t make things that bad in truth. I won’t go into the whole ‘one paper it’s an easy month’ thing, anything can happen in football and I just we get off to a good start and convert those early season draws from last term into wins – let’s go and take the title! 
As the boys returned for pre-season training on Tuesday they we’re handed a change in the pre-season schedule as Keith Curle’s Notts County cancelled their friendly match with us. A commentary challenge was then thrown into the mix for us as Paul Cox revealed he is to send a side to Stourbridge on the same night we travel to Eastwood. Losing the Notts County game is a blow in a sense as it’d have been good to test ourselves against a solid league one side, plus enjoy a little of that friendly rivalry we’ve been missing! However not wanting to take the foot off the gas, a replacement friendly has been added for the date left vacant by Notts County as we travel to Hucknall Town. On Wednesday I was tasked with upload a photo gallery from the previous days training session, It certainly looks like the new group was full of banter and that the hard work had started early, bring on the Leamington match is all I say!  We’ve been linked with Jake Speight for a while and on Wednesday it was confirmed that Jake had re-signed for us from rivals Wrexham after two seasons away – It’s fair to say Jake arrives with somewhat of a cloud over his head, not only in the way he departed for Bradford City but with alleged off field issues, I hope that we can all leave this as yesterday’s news and let the football do the talking as once again we have another quality player – I drool to think of our forward line next season! In terms of the off pitch stuff, I think Paul Cox is the right man to ensure the football shines for Jake, look at the transformation of Gary Roberts, arriving with alleged Gambling and drinking problems, Matt Green, pushed from pillar to post at Oxford – just to name a few! Football, the beautiful game, heals all.
That’s pretty much it from this week in all honesty, fixtures and fittings can be a very small thing, I know there were many trialists at training this week but I don’t know their names, maybe we’ll find out next week, after all – footballs back! Woooooooooooooooo. The views expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not those of Mansfield Matters or it’s related organisations – to submit a piece for publication email mtfcmatters@gmail.com
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