Drax wants explosive start to season

While Europe’s finest footballers are still battling it out in Euro 2008, Maidenhead United’s less illustrious players will hit the training ground this week for the start of their pre-season training.

And after a series of poor season openings, this year manager Johnson 'Drax' Hippolyte is adamant that his team will get off to a more explosive start.

“The way we’ve started the last couple of seasons have let us down,” he said. “And the lack of momentum has meant that we’ve had more to do come the end of the season.”

Indeed last season it took five league games for the Magpies to record their first win and their indifferent start set the tone for what became a difficult season that nearly culminated in relegation.

“We’ve finished the last two seasons very well, but our starts have let us down and that is something that we will look at,” he added.

“You don’t want to be playing catch up in any league and it’s important that the team is ready for our first league game in August.”

Hippolyte has certainly wrung the changes in the close season and the Magpies will welcome a host of new players when they gather at Bisham Abbey on Saturday.

The new men are utility man Tyron Smith, midfielders Ben Surey and Ashley Nichols, left winger Dale Binns and keeper Shane Gore and the five will train with their new teammates for the first time with their new boss confident in the changes he has made to the squad.

Bisham Abbey used to be used to be the home of the England football team and Hippolyte is hopeful that the pedigree of the place will have an influence on his players.

“We’re very pleased to be playing at Bisham,” he said. “It’s an excellent place to train and I’m sure the players will respond to that.

“I’m really pleased with the squad that we’ve put together. We’ve added in all the right places and we’d still like to bring in someone upfront but there’s still a lot of time. There’s not a lot going on at the moment but we’ll wait and see which players are available and hopefully get a few down for pre-season.

“We want to wait for the right player.”

Another addition to Hippolyte’s squad is coach Martin Ireland who has been brought in to add additional depth to United’s coaching team.