Wade excited by pre-season progress

The season may have finished just two weeks ago but Spartans manager Tom Wade has insisted that he will ensure the club doesn't rest on their laurels and that planning is well underway for the new campaign. An eighth placed finish in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League saw the Croft Park club far exceed many people's expectations but Wade revealed work is in progress ahead of a big pre-season for the club.

"Colin(Myers) and myself have held meetings to put together a pre-season programme that will give us the best chance of really attacking the season, hitting the ground running and building on the foundations we have in place. We want everyone involved and we will be inviting the supporters into open training sessions. We will be also be announcing a competitive list of pre-season friendlies as soon as they are confirmed with the opposition, it's an exciting time for everyone at the club"

Wade also reassured the Green Army that an emphasis on retaining the vast majority of the squad had been put to the top of his to do list during what seems like a busy summer for the Spartans boss. Talks have already taken place with the existing members of the Spartans playing staff and they were talks Wade hailed as "positive".

"As a club we have to be looking to keep the squad who achieved so much last season and I can assure our supporters that talks have already taken place with the players. They were very positive talks and we got a lot of answers that we wanted to hear from them and I think we answered a lot of questions that needed to be answered for the players too"

As well as retaining players Wade revealed that the club had made a positive start to their recruitment drive to bring fresh blood into the squad. However far from just getting underway the process began a number of months ago according to the former Gateshead and Newcastle Benfield manager.

"We identified the players we wanted and the areas we felt we had to strengthen as early as February. We know what we need and we know that we have to add to our squad. We have a list of key targets and we are already talking to them, hopefully there will be progress over the coming weeks"