Hastings set to wrap up friendlies

The U’s visit Eastbourne Town today (Friday) before travelling to Eastbourne Borough tomorrow. The Town game kicks-off at 7.45pm and the Borough match at 3pm.

“Every player will get a minimum of 90 minutes so everybody is up to match fitness for the following week (when the season proper starts),” said United player-manager Sean Ray.

Former United player Anthony Storey played in both games over the past week and fellow midfielder Tom Vickers, who along with left back Matt Whitehead had played for a Crawley Town XI a week previously, turned out against the South Londoners.

“Vickers was told no by Crawley but they asked Matt to stay for training for a week,” revealed Ray. “We’ll just have to wait.”

As for Storey, the player-boss explained: “I spoke to him over a week ago because we weren’t sure what was going to happen with Tom and we’re still not because he wants to get back to full time football. Anthony’s got a lot of experience, fits in with the way we want to play and he seems keen.”

Joe Winchester started in goal for the U’s against Bromley after Matt Armstrong-Ford injured his knee in the warm-up. Ray revealed: “We’re not sure with Matt. He did not want to risk it during the game. We’ll find out more over the weekend.”

Former Rye United keeper Josh Pelling took over the gloves from Winchester and is expected to play tonight.

Talented forward Jordan Woodley has also been involved pre-season but Ray admits his level of fitness isn’t quite what it should be.

See today’s Hastings Observer for the full article.