Fisher FC players have been pulling no punches this pre-season as boss Dean Harrison has had them in the boxing gym in the run up to their season opener on Saturday.
The Rotherhithe club, who will start this season playing their home games at Champion Hill in Dulwich, get their Southern Counties East Football League campaign underway this Saturday when they travel to Deal Town. Just two days later they will play their first home game, a 7.45pm kick off, against Cray Valley PM in East Dulwich.
Harrison, who is overseeing his first Fisher pre-season since taking over part way through last campaign, told the News he wanted to mix things up for the players. He said: “We changed it up as a lot of clubs are quite old school and tend to run players into the ground in pre-season. “We did our fitness work but we had regular boxing sessions on a Monday night with Mickey Cantwell and his team.
“The boys loved that and it was great for fitness, team bonding and it kept things interesting for everybody.” But Harrison admitted that pre-season has been tougher than he hoped. He added: “It has not been easy as we lost most of the squad from last season.
“We just don’t have a budget and players want money. “So we have to start from afresh and that meant we had to leave things like working on shape and formations until late as we had to get the players in. “That is not ideal but with all the money flying around in the Kent League it is difficult to keep hold of talented players.”
“Our target is mid-table and safety and we have talked to the board about that target. I think that is a reasonable expectation taking into account our budget and the money going around in our league. “That is not to say we won’t take higher or look for a good cup run but that it is a target we have set.”