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Fans Forum Transcript
The abridged transcript from the recent Fans Forum is now online. Held on Friday 1st July 2005 in the Social Club.
How many of last season's squad have signed?Gary Norton (GN): New players we've signed Gavin Saxby, Nick Ghislanzoni, Alan Davies, David Holmes. Players re-signed are Gary White, Matt Smith, Andy Simpson, Niall Hudson, Nathan Tate, Aaron O'Connor and Paul Edwards there are still others who are on holiday at present and there will be one or two trialists.
Jamie Hood is still injured and will probably not be fit until September - October, Micky Lyons broke his foot during the last game at Telford but I will be talking to him in next couple of weeks.
We will also be talking to Steve Farmer when he comes back off his holidays. Ashley Dodd is moving to Jersey but should that fall through he would join us for next season.
Emeka and Chris White are both reporting back for pre-season and to have the number of players signed or committed to us that we have already puts us ahead of previous seasons in regards to preparations. We do not start pre-season training until tomorrow (2nd) so I'm not worried that certain positions are not filled yet.
Will the discipline of the team be improved upon?
GN: Yes, it will. Although to be fair there were one or two red cards last season which were unjust. The game at Ossett was one. Gavin Saxby had made a save and the referee amazingly said it was Gary White who had handled the ball. Even Ossett's players tried to tell the ref that Whitey hadn't touched the ball but he wouldn't listen so there is no accounting for decisions like that. But, there were some needless and unnecessary red cards and we are going to try and remedy that this season.
We were caught out many times by set plays last season. Is that an area you are going to work on this time?
GN: We did last season to be honest so it's difficult to put a finger on as to why we conceded so many goals from set pieces. We will be doing work on defending them but also we will be working on our own set pieces. Last season we'd put in one good ball and then three dreadful ones although towards the end of the season we did improve and it is something that we will be working on this pre-season.
We had a couple of players or so that came back to the club after failing at other clubs. Would you do the same this time?
GN: I think we would consider them if we thought they would improve the side. A club like ours can never say never.
