Common keen to climb table

Common will kick-off their Sussex County League Division Two campaign away to Wick on Saturday determined to improve on their third-bottom finish last time out.

Player-manager Russell Eldridge said: “Our first and foremost aim is to make sure we remain in the division and we don’t want to be going into the last few weeks of the season in a dogfight.

“We’re looking to make improvements on last year; that’s our main aim. I think it’s going to be a fairly tight and competitive league this year, and we’ll try to pick up as many points as we can.”

Only a strong finish kept Common out of the two relegation places in 2011/12, although they were still in danger of facing the drop for ground grading reasons until Division One was expanded from 20 to 22 teams and no clubs went down from Division Two.

The squad has remained similar over the summer. A couple of attacking players, Chris Cumming-Bart and Lewis Hole, have come in and a couple, Drew Greenall and Linton Rogers, have gone out.

“We did well to stay up and we’re looking to build on that which is why we didn’t make wholesale changes,” continued Eldridge. “We’ve got quite a versatile squad with players who can play in numerous positions and we’re such a tight group of players.”

Eldridge, who believes consistency will be key, has a full squad to pick from and says it will be a hard job selecting his starting XI given the healthy competition for places.

See tomorrow’s Bexhill Observer for the full article and a guide to Common’s season.