New Hucknall Town boss Andy Ingle looking forward to opening friendly trip to his former club Eastwood CFC

Ingle spent three years there helping youngsters through to men's football in the club's education and football programme

“I have only been back there twice and not in any official capacity since I left which was four years ago now. So it will be good and even better if we win – even though it is only a friendly,” he said.

“I know their manager Paul Rockley well and get on really well with him which is kind of unusual. “He did actually say it will be the first time for a long time that a Hucknall manager and an Eastwood manager actually got on. I replied 'we're not in the technical area yet'.

“He is a good guy and he's done really well for himself.

"At one time we did look at working together.

"But it never came to fruition as he was always doing something or I was doing something.

“But he was one of the first people to congratulate me when I got the job.

“I don't know many of their players as they have changed, but I know a lot of people at the club.”

Training has been going well with some new faces involved that the club hope to sign next week and Ingle said: “The lads are now just wanting to get on the pitch next Wednesday.

“We have let them play some short 11 v 11 games time as we've had enough bodies there to do that.

“It gives us a chance to look at players, albeit only in a practice match.

“They were just thankful to get into an 11-a-side scenario rather than just running their guts out.

“We will take the training to another level once we've played that first game.”

He added: “We will take a squad of 18 to Eastwood.

“New players need a decent amount of game time and we want to try a few things and maybe alter the system as we will obviously need a Plan B, so we can look at different people playing in certain positions.

“We will also have lads we are potentially still looking at.”