Sidbury United boss Jamie Schofield is lamenting the continued loss of players to pre-season injury and has taken the decision to cancel Saturday’s scheduled warm-up match as a precaution against getting further injuries.

The Byes Lane boss says; “I have never known a pre-season like this one. I know we had it tough towards the end of last season with injury after injury and being forced to play players out of position. However, rather than the problem go away during the summer months it has actually seemed to get worse, much worse!

“In Tuesday night’s friendly with Sidmouth Town we suffered an injury to Charlie Cox to such a degree that he’ll now be out for up to two months with a knee problem and Jamie Bayliss went off in the same game with a thigh problem.”

He continued: “As daft as it sounds I had one player who actually played in five different positions in the game, such were the problems we were picking up.”

The United boss has now called off Saturday’s friendly with Exmouth Town Reserves and says: “I was loathe to call, the game off at short notice, but what option did I have. I made a conscious decision at the end of last season to try and work with an 18-man squad this season in a bid to avoid the sort of issues we had last season. That 18-man squad is now severely depleted and we are just a week away from starting a new Fresha League campaign.”

United start with a trip to Bow AAC next Saturday (August 15) and also play one other Saturday home game in the first month as well as two away games with midweek meetings with Feniton and Chard Town.

Schofield says: “The midweek games are something of a relief as we will be able to call on the services of three of last years lads who have moved to Tiverton Town Reserves who are now playing in another league and so, when they can, they’ll be available to us.”

One player who typifies the spirit in the United ranks is striker Danny Green, playing through the pain barrier with a problematic shoulder. Schofield says: “Danny (Green) is a great example of a good club player. He has a shoulder problem - it even popped out before the game with Sidmouth, but he had it put back in and got on with the game. That’s typical of him and also typical of the lads in our side. Well battle on together no matter what things are thrown at us. I have had to down size my targets for the season – for now. Everyone knows my craving for this club to have success and top of the priorities is therefore a challenge for the Fresha League. However, given the injury woes, we’ll take is game by game to start with and take stock of the bigger picture after ten games of the season.”