Pre-season friendlies (4) GNE 0 Stockport County 3

Good performance in defeat by a GNE side who were never overawed by the opposition. County came with a full first team squad for their last pre-season match with new Manager Paul Simpson looking to finalise his starting XI.

Given that the opposition on the day will play in a league five levels above us, and are full time professional players, there were some great positives to come out of this match for GNE.

County start their league programme away at Southend and GNE start away at Padiham - quite a contrast!!!

As one County fan was heard to say when leaving the ground "Hope to see you again in the first round of the Cup". Well, that would be nice of course but the very least we have done in the pre-season matches is to continue to develop relationships between our club and all the others we play either home or away. Excellent.

Pre-Season Friendly (3) GNE 0 FC United 0

Not all 0-0 draws are boring. Wednesday night saw a very attractive match at Surrey Street against a side featuring one of our regulars from last season, Martin Parker. Defensively, GNE looked to be very well organised but even when FC United threatened the home goal, Stuart Williams was again in good form. Having said that, some work needs to be done on the links going forward to bring Garry Kharas more into the game.

Although the side with all of the new signings are still coming together, this was a promising display. Looking forward to the next match.

Ohh Martin Parker....