Matlock Town's players were put through their paces for the first time since the season's end on Tuesday night and boss mark Atkins declared himself happy with their first session.

"Three or four were on holiday but all of those that we expected to be there came. It was a very good opening session and everyone came back looking fit and well, having looked after themselves by doing their bit in the summer as we'd asked."

The squad face two more sessions before their opening friendly game at Armthorpe Welfare on Tuesday evening (7.30 pm), which is followed by another trip, to Teversal on Saturday week.

At the moment there is just one confirmed addition to the Matlock ranks as attacker Colin Marrison has joined from Evo-Stik Premier Division rivals Retford United. Nathan Benger though has left to join Belper Town.

But a few trialists are likely to stake their claim to join Matlock in the opening two friendlies.

"We'll be using all of the squad we have from last season and probably a few trialists, different ones in each game" Atkins explained."What I want to do is to get the squad we know we've got fully fit and not overload them too much. We can use the trialists to see how they fare by picking and choosing when we play them."

Atkins is still keen to add to his squad and hopes to continue talks with a possible recruit when the player returns from holiday.

But there is good news as both Ben Algar and Lee Featherstone, who were on the injured list at the end of last season, appear to be in good health.

Featherstone picked up a knee injury in the 1-1 draw at Buxton on Easter Monday and missed the remainder of the campaign, including the Derbyshire Senior Cup Final win against Belper at Pride Park. Algar also picked up a knee injury, being stretchered off at Pride Park.

"Ben's fine and Fez should be okay for it was agreed that he would contact me during the summer if there were any problems" said Atkins."I haven't heard anything so it looks like good news."

Matlock should learn this week their opponents in the opening rounds of the FA Cup and FA Trophy, with the Football association due to release the draws for the early rounds imminently. The Gladiators will enter both competitions at the 1st Qualifying Round stage, and good runs in both competitions would be a huge boost financially to them, particularly with all the ground development work being undertaken at Causeway Lane.

Steelwork for the new stand has started to go up as fans at last can note visual evidence of all of the hard work in the preparation stages of the project.

"The structure itself will really fly on now as there's been so much work in just getting all of the foundations completed" explained club spokesman Jason Beaumont. "It's really great to see it going up like this and even better to know that we've used local contractors all along the way. William Twigg and Arlington have been fantastic to work with on this project and we can't thank them enough for all they're doing for us."

A separate website has been set up specifically to cover the New Stand Project and this can be accessed at www.matlocktownstandappeal.co...

IAN RICHARDSON