Stretford Paddock FC begin their preseason campaign with an opening fixture against RNE Albion in the Manchester Summer Cup.
Across preseason, Paddock will compete in the Manchester Summer Cup alongside many other teams across the area of Manchester.
This preseason cup competition will feature groups of 6 teams battling it out for a place in the knockout stages: Starting with a Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarter-Final, Semi-Final and Final.
Paddock face RNE Albion for the first fixture in our group.
Manager Stephen Howson states he can’t wait to get back underway again:
“We’ve had a hard couple of months selecting and identifying players, and we think we’re almost there with what our squad is going to look like for next season. We have added 15 players to our first team squad, and I think we have already added more quality and depth to what was a pretty strong side last season.
“There is still a hell of a lot of hard work to do, all of these new players have to gel and settle and learn our way of playing football. How far we have come in the last 12 months is crazy. I’ve been trying to remember what my thoughts on the team were 12 months ago ahead of our first few preseason friendlies.
“I know that I have personally learnt a lot, and grown as a coach in the last 12 months, I know a lot of our players have also grown and developed over the last 12 months, we have added a development squad as well as an under 21s squad and we have now somewhere around 100 players playing for Stretford Paddock FC. I think we can actually call ourselves a football club now instead of just one or two football teams sharing the same name.
” We don’t have any information on what the standard all level of the Manchester summer cup will be, but it is regular competitive football that’s going to allow me to utilise players from every single one of our squads and I look to prepare for different teams for the regular season starting in August or September.
“I will be picking a team at the weekend to go out and get a result probably be heavily weighed towards last seasons team, all last seasons players, before introducing some of the new lads in the second-half. I cannot wait to get going.”
This fixture will be played at Astley Sports Village on Sunday 4th July at 2.30pm.
