Martin: I’d like to keep squad together

Romford manager Paul Martin is facing an anxious wait to see which of his players return for 2012/13.

Boro handed out their end of season awards last weekend (see inside), but Martin is concerned bigger clubs may now come in for his leading men.

Trials will be held in two weeks time, before the first-team squad are due back for pre-season at the end of the month.

Martin said: “Ideally I’d like to keep this squad together and bring five or six youngsters in.

“I can’t get the players to sign now, they want to go on their holidays! But we’ll let them know about pre-season and I will put in a few calls and we’ll see.

“I’ve had about 70 emails already asking about trials. I’m all for youngsters playing first-team football. If you don’t experiment you never know, but we’ve got to do it to keep costs down.

“But if we do it right and get the right personnel, we can have another good season.”

Hornchurch boss Jimmy McFarlane, meanwhile, was keeping tight-lipped on his team-building plans for next season.

Urchins are preparing for life in Conference South, following their dramatic promotion play-off success, and McFarlane said: “I’m speaking to all of the squad and sitting down with players every day.

“Most of them are good enough to hold their own in that league, but I think we do need strengthening in certain areas.

“Hopefully by next week I will have a list of names to release.”