READY… STEADY… AND HERE WE GO FOR 26/27!

THE Brickies will run out today at the newly-named GD Print Stadium to face Cove in the Wessex League Division One - the start of a road we hope will lead us back to the Prem. Getting promotion is never easy - there will be 20 other teams around us dreaming of that prize right now, so nobody here is getting carried away with over-confidence. What we ARE confident about is that after a promising, and testing, pre-season schedule, we definitely have as good a chance as anyone of at least having a serious tilt at restoring the status we lost at the end of last season. The hottest local derbies will obviously be against our old friends and rivals from Lymo - but not too far away are Ringwood, Romsey, Hamworthy, Folland, Totton & Eling and Fawley. Longest road trips will be up to Berkshire - for Aldermaston, Kintbury and Sandhurst. Almost as far, around the Aldershot area, we will be going to Frimley Green, Ash and Cove, while it will be up the M3 a little and away to the right for Colden Common and Alresford. Blandford will take us an hour each way - and then there's the "overseas" trip to Newport IoW! Our photographer, good old Les Chase, says he and his assistant, Yorkie pooch Jemma, will be going to most of those games and has calculated a there-and-back distance of around 1,800 miles.