Ash Grayson will be well known to Carlton Town having featured the season before last. Last season the goal scoring midfielder featured for Mickleover Sports so knows this level well & can get goals from the middle of the park. Gino signs from another former Evo-Stik outfit Rainworth and was a bright spark in a difficult season for the North Notts Outfit. Another very good local product Gino is a former Notts County youth team player who left the club for Rainworth in 2014.

Defender Jake signs from Nottm Forest having been released in 2014 and spent his young years at Leicester youth team before moving overseas to play in Sweden. 2014 Jake went to Forest and was involved at Under 21 level..

All the lads featured and gave decent displays in what was a mixture of 1st/U21 and U18 players . This 1st preseason friendly today at home to Coleshill Town ended 0-3. The score bears total irrelevance as the workout was a good one for the returning group.

Manager Martin Carruthers elected to virtually change the starting 11 after 30 minutes with the score line locked at 0-0. With Basford blooding 3 16 year olds during this period it was a special day for 16 year old youngsters Jordan Crossman, Calum Smith & Darius Small who entered the game as well as a raft of 18 & 19 year olds.

Despite losing that 3rd of the game 0-3 plenty of positives to take from this young group. Coleshill though demonstrated a really good cutting edge in this 30 min period netting 3 clinical strikes with number 3 a beauty.

Final 30 Carruthers reverted to a more 1st team squad based 11, and that steadied the ship with the 3rd period ending 0-0 , so all in all a very beneficial workout for all involved.

United will quickly move onto another outing Tuesday with a visit to NSL outfit Ruddington.

United supporters who attended in decent numbers today were denied the opportunity to see striker Ruben Wiggins-Thomas who was absent with a virus. Also missing Lee Hendrie, Rob Darkin, Fabian Smith & with Stuart Hendrie used sparingly via his 1st session, then this was a good opportunity for players looking to stake a claim this new campaign.

Carruthers was very pleased on the showing of Jordan Crossman and Darius Small and Robbie McNicholas gave a very good display at fullback, very reminiscent of his brother Jamie who departs on a scholarship in the next few weeks.