Bulls chief Turner is ready for the season

10:00am Friday 8th August 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

HEREFORD United chief Graham Turner insists his side is ready for the big League One kick-off despite admitting being short of at least two players.

The Edgar Street club have been knocked back in their bid to bolster the squad ahead of tomorrow’s opening day clash at Leyton Orient.

Nineteen players are currently contracted to Hereford for the 2008/09 campaign but Turner wants to increase that number before the transfer window slams shut at the end of the month.

A deal to bring Dutch winger Michael van der Heijden to the club on a month’s loan has fallen through at the last minute, while a long-running chase to net a striker also hit the buffers.

Turner, though, is more than pleased with the players he has and is raring to go in the club’s first appearance in the third tier of English football for 31 years. He said: “I would have liked another couple of signings. Apart from strengthening the squad, I am quite happy with the way pre-season has gone.

“The players have worked very hard. I can’t wait to get on with it.”

Hereford head to the Matchroom Stadium on the back of a warm-up programme that has yielded just one victory from eight matches, a 10-0 drubbing of Ledbury Town at the beginning of July.

However, the players have impressed the Hereford boss and he sees no reason why the team cannot return from London with three points in the bag before they break for a Carling Cup clash at Crystal Palace on Tuesday.

“It does the confidence the world of good to get off to a decent start,” Turner added.

“We have got to go there and be disciplined and if we do that we have got a good chance of taking a point or three.”

Orient defender Tamika Mkandawire is expected to be fit to face his former club but on-loan Tottenham striker Simon Dawkins and winger Loick Pires are both out through injury.

Hereford United face the camera before their League One kick-off, back row (left to right): Craig Jones, Garry Breen, Craig Samson, Dean Beckwith, Darren Randolph, Clint Easton and Robbie Threlfall. Middle: Matthew Done, Luke Webb, Kris Taylor, Toumani Diagouraga, Karl Broadhurst, Steve Guinan, Ben Smith and Richard Rose. Front: Simon Johnson, Sam Gwynne, Tony Ford (fitness coach), Graham Turner (chairman, manager and director of football), John Trewick (first team coach), Wayne Jones (club physio), Bradley Hudson-Odoi and Jack Macleod.