Not long to go before the start of the season, does it give you the same buzz as when you were a player?

Yeah I think so, there's good anticipation around the football club. There has been a lot of hard work gone on between the end of the season and now, and I think the players get that kind of excitement and their nerves start. That goes around the football club and the anticipation is geared towards Saturday and getting it underway really. For me personally it has been a lot of hard work, I think pre-season has gone as well as we could have expected so I'm looking forward to Saturday's game.

And looking at pre-season, you've played a lot of preseason matches, you've given them a fair old drill over at Kimbolton School. Has that gone as you've expected, no injury problems and basically the team has gelled?

I think pre-season has gone to plan. Contributions from Michael Stone and Simon Parsell have been outstanding in our preparation. Simon works endlessly behind the scenes, he keeps people fit and in shape. I'm delighted with the way pre-season's gone, we've picked up very few injuries and only minor knocks to one or two, so it couldn't have gone any better really. I feel the level of fitness of the players is at a really good level. We certainly feel there's more to come and we don't want to be peaking just yet, so in a nutshell yes its been a very good pre-season.

Looking forward to Saturday I've got tough decisions to make, but ones I'm glad I've got to make. With that the case, I know I've got to leave some good, good players out of the football team who are going to be upset and wounded.

I'd rather it be that way; me picking my team instead of it being picked for me due to injuries etc.

When you gear yourself up for the first game of the season, how different is that, if at all, from any other game of the season?

Well, I try to keep it as normal a week as I possibly can, so I don't think you want to over excite or have over exuberance from the players. Preparation will be exactly as it would for any other game. It is always nice to get off to a good start at home, but I can't remember a campaign being won in the first game of the season.

I always look in blocks of ten or twelve games and assess after that, we'll set ourselves targets and nothing would be nicer than to get three points at home with a good performance in front of our home fans who'll probably be delighted to see that, as would I.

What sort of training plan have you had in place the week before the season begins? Do you play games, 11 Versus 11 or is it down to running and keeping fit?

No, it is the various finer details now. Set pieces, the last bit of shape to the finishing line up, we're just ticking over with the fitness, because the fitness is good now. It's just the rough edges so to speak, I named the team and we did our final preparations on Thursday (yesterday), we're practicing set pieces on Friday (today), and looking forward to the game on Saturday afternoon.