Simon Armstrong is pleased with how his Ilkley Town squad is shaping up with just eight days to go until their historic Non League debut.
“95%” of last season’s squad are staying for Ilkley’s opening gambit in the semi-professional football which begins with the dream visit of giants Bury AFC for the North West Counties Division One North big kick-off.
In addition to the team who did the business in the West Yorkshire League, Armstrong has drafted defender Josh Parker and Josh Bowers in via his relationship with Leeds University.
Matty Swift, George Pearson, Aaron Davis and James Hughes have joined, while James Hudson and midfielder Ben Atkinson have been elevated from the under 23s.
“We have a partnership with Leeds University which we have formalised this year because I used to work with the football side of things (there) and I know the director of football really well,” Armstrong told Non League Yorkshire.
“He is keen to have that connection so have a couple of players coming from the University who are very strong first team players.
“We have been fortunate to get a few players who have shown an interest. We haven’t got in touch in them, but they have come along and excelled in training and matches.
“Internally we have promoted two or three players into the first team from the second team and under 23s and a couple of them are starting to blossom.
“I’m absolutely delighted with where we are, but I’m not going to lie that I’m going to try and bring some bodies in over the next couple of months as I see it as an ongoing project.
“It’ll be players in a couple of key areas where we need a little extra. But overall I’m happy with the group.”
But recruitment rather than the issues caused the pandemic has been the hardest part of the job for Armstrong this summer.
“It has been a challenge, but other clubs have had it worse than we have,” he said.
“We haven’t lost any fixtures to covid – touch wood because we have got one Saturday.
“We have had a few players isolating but I wouldn’t say it hasn’t been anything major.
“It has been manageable.
“The biggest disruption is the fact that because of covid over the past 18 months (and the two aborted seasons) we didn’t find if we were getting promoted until quite late.
“It only gave us approximately ten weeks from when we found out to the start of the season – because they also brought the season forward.
“I think from that perspective it has been a challenge.
“Step 6 and higher teams had finished long before that and a lot had their squads sorted and (player) movement has been sorted provisionally.
“From a Step 7 perspective most leagues carried on playing in sort form of competition which didn’t finish until June.”
Armstrong also agrees that pre-season has been a far greater challenge than 12 months ago.
“Yes I think we are in worse position (than last year) because of what has gone before and what could potentially happen,” he said.
“If the delta variant gets more rife, the 18 to 30 footballers are in that bracket of not being fully vaccinated and they’re also in the bracket of going out and socialising the most.
“So they’re more likely to catch it even if they’re vaccinated.
“I think there’s definite scope to say (the season) will be disrupted, but I think we have got to the point where most of the public are vaccinated and I think we have just got to crack on as best as we can.”