With the first action of the new season commencing this weekend, now seems as good a time as any to start a weekly preview of the upcoming
games in the local area,something ive often started typing up in the past for my own benefit but im now deciding to share with the world via
our own club, Rushcliffe FC, on our pitchero site. This is episode 1 of the new Local footy preview !

An obvious place to start is with the league clubs. I'll not in general be going into too much detail as this is aimed more at the non-league
scene, which Notts County unfortunately now fall into,but i will for this first episode as its the season opening weekend.
We start off with Nottingham Forest, who for me im not expecting much from this season. Ive never really
got the fact the Forests fans feel like they are a big club ready to make their jump back into the premier league,
i just dont see it personally. They will hope and of course a good start and some consistent form along with avoiding too many
injuries then anything could happen, but for some reason Forest regularly get panicked by languishing in mid table obscurity
and decide to part ways with their manager to then go through the same cycle again.
What they need is long term stability in terms of giving the manager and his coaching team time to build his work towards the longer term
aim and accept it may not happen immediately.
A couple of top 10 finishes should be encouraging really and they can then try to push on from there. Im sorry to
say though Forest fans, that a top 10 finish is probably the best i can imagine them doing this season, they just need to avoid pressing
the panic button and wanting a change in leaderhip and allow them to build gradually. What would be the point in going up too soon to then
just come straight back down again and being back to square one. Patience is the key this season for Forest.

And to annoy Forest fans that little bit further, i feel Derby on the other hand could mount a solid play off push,
if they havent lost too much momentum by losing Lampard, although the lads they had a loan last season will be big losses to their squad
i do think they could potentially sneak into the top 6.

Lincoln make their move into league 1 and i think they've definately got enough about them to not be having to look over their shoulders in
the relegation battle, but it may be too soon to expect anything other than a comfortable mid table position, which wouldnt be a bad result being honest.

In League 2 i fancy Mansfield to make a promotion push, while i dont think theyll have enough for the league title, i do think they can
sneak into the top 3 and avoid the lottery of the play offs. They start the season visiting Newport county, who knocked them out of the
play offs after extra time last season. Prior to that game they hadnt lost to Newport in their 12 previous meetings and i think theyll pick
that form back up this weekend and get their season off to a winning start.

So we move into non league and specifically the National league, where Notts County are the club everyone will be watching. They will be big
scalps to take and having had a lot of summer turmoil, which is now thankfully over, i think they may have left it all a little too late to
be able to hit the ground running. While they may adjust to life in non league football by around christmas time the damage will already be done.
I dont envisage a situation like York city where they ended up relegated on the bounce, i just think theyll get off to a slow start and
leave themselves too much to do. It may result in sneaking into the play offs, although i think theres a few strong title challengers this season
and for me the 2 promoted teams will come from AFC Fylde, Wrexham or another local team in Chesterfield.
The spirites took a bit of time to adjust last season just how i think will be the case for Notts, and they started climbing the table and
hitting better form as the season progressed. With a bit of luck they could become strong contenders to win the division title but will face
stiff competition. I think theyll go up though, either as Champions of via the play offs, but theyll certainly need a bit of luck to get there.

In the National league North theres a few localish sides in Alfreton, Kettering and Boston United, but i would be lying if i pretended i had
any idea of their chances this season so that may be something to come back to at a later date, theres some former big hitters in the
division such as Chester City, York City, Kidderminster Harriers, Hereford and Darlington etc so its sure to be a ifficult league to get out of.

Further down the non league ladder a lot of the leagues dont quite start yet, but one that does begin this weekend is the East Midlands
Counties League. The league itself have already been informed this will be its last season due to the FA making changes to the structure
of the non league pyramid, so while its likely most of the clubs will go into the new Northern counties division 1 south divisions, its purely
nothing more than speculation at this point and we will just have to wait to see what course is taken by the FA Leagues committee.
The race to the title in its last season is shaping up to be an interesting one, with Sherwood Colliery having just missed out last season,
finishing not far behind runners up Newark Flowserve and eventual champions Selston, looking to try to make the jump to step 5 but theyll
face some stiff competition. Heanor Town started off very slowly last season having been relegated into the league voloutarily, but went
on a very good unbeaten run in the latter part of the season and will be strong contenders this season. Relegated Dunkirk will want to bounce
straight back up at the risk of becoming a bit of a yoyo team. The won the EMCL in 2015/16 season only to come straight back down the following
season, then won it again to bounce straight back up, and now theyve come back down again. As a club they have a brilliant set up, running 3 mens
good senior teams with their reserves AFC Dunkirk playing in the NSL prem and their 3rd team known as AFC Dunkirk reserves being new to
NSL 2. They also have a very succesful youth section, so the infrastructure is there for them to achieve, but i think what they have shown is
that theres a big jump in standard from step 6 to step 5, with clubs having bigger budgets too. Another very strong competitor this term
will be West Bridgford. West Bridgford really struggled early on and were rooted to the bottom of the table for quite a while, before a change
in management saw them begin to make progress and they made a rapid rise up the table in the second hlaf of the season to finish just inside the
top half. Having merged with AFC Bridgford they, like Dunkirk, now have 3 senior sides. Their Reserves known as West Bridgford AFC are in NSL1
and the 3rd team WEst Bridgford AFC reserves are in the Midland & Notts Alliance prem. They also are rumoured to have the biggest youth set
up in Europe with a staggering amount of teams, sometimes as many as 5 at each age group right up from under 7s to under 18s, so the merger with
AFC Bridgford will offer them more of a platform to promote players from within. For Me West Bridgford are a club on the way up in the long term
and will eventually before long be finding their way into the FA cup qualifying rounds and beyond.
At the other end it could be a long Season for Borrowash Victoria who really struggled last time and shipped far too many goals,
finishing with a goal difference of minus 139 which include twice being in crushing defeats with double figures put past them.
Their pre season form though looks encouraging and maybe the right changes in personel have been made to see an improved season this time round.
Other strugglers this time i think will be Clipstone, who only finished 1 place above Borrowash last season and had a really poor run of form
in the 2nd half of the season. Clipstone recorded a 9-1 win against Borrowash in mid september, and then didnt win again for the rest of the season.
Another one who may struggle is Shirebrook Town, having been transferred laterally from the Norther Counties East division 1, they left it til
the last day of the season to avoid relegation when earning a point to champions Grimby Borough with a nil nil draw thanks to the heroics of their
Goalkeeper Levi Owen, who has now departed to rivals Ollerton Town.

Coming next week, we will look ahead to the Extra Preliminary round of the FA cup and a few more local leagues kicking off. Our own club Rushcliffe FC will
also be back in action against AFC Villa so we will run down how pre season has gone so far for our newly formed club ahead of our debut season.