DC on the challenge ahead With the Conference fixtures due out tomorrow, manager Darrell Clarke is looking forward to seeing who his team will face on the opening day of the season. Whilst the manager has signed a number of players with Conference experience, some of his squad have never played at that level and he says they might be surprised at the standard of football in what is essentially the fifth division. âIt might come as a little bit of a culture shock to some, but Iâll be talking to the players about that. âOn our travels we will be playing at a number of different venues and itâs all about getting the mind right because some of the facilities we will encounter arenât as luxurious as those at many of the clubs we met in League Two. âWe have to make sure we are prepared for that and itâs important to be aware of that. However I have a good mix of players here, many of whom know what the Conference is all about. âNo one should under estimate the standard of football in the Conference. You only have to look at how long Luton took to regain their Football League status and letâs not forget that there are some big spenders amongst the teams in the league. âThere are a number of good teams and, in my opinion, the top six or seven Conference teams could comfortably handle League Two football so we canât go into this league thinking itâs going to be easy. âWe have a reputation of being the biggest club in the league now, so everyone will want to beat us and we have no doubts that we face a massive challenge ahead of us.â You can see more of Darrellâs interview on Gas Player. The Conference fixtures are out tomorrow and will appear on the website at 3.00pm.
we are everyones FA cup final and we may not even qualify for the FA cup FFS what have we got ourselves into
Would love to be a fly on the boardroom wall. Laurel and Hardy style "Another fine mess you've got us into Boycie, I'm sorry Barrie (sic)"
Well, we weren't exactly comfortable in League 2 with an arguably stronger squad... so don't hold your breath...
