Dolly Blues boss Mark Fell sets sights high when new season gets under way

The Dolly Blues were certainly the surprise package before the 2019/20 campaign was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

With one of the smallest budgets in the division, City spent the majority of the season in the higher echelons of the table.

They were the league leaders for a number of weeks before Christmas and although they had slipped from that lofty perch by the time the season was brought to a premature close, they remained in a play-off position.

While disappointed that he was ultimately stopped from completing what promised to be a fine season for City, Fell believes the experience is players have gained this season will be beneficial for the future.

It is hoped that by the time August comes around, the world will have returned to some kind of normality and Fell insists City will be ready to press ahead with their long term aim of returning to the National League North.

“I have spoken to the chairman and the board of directors, their question to me was what do you want for next season,” said Fell.

“My answer to them was I want to win it.

“We have shown this season that we have the capabilitities of being up there.

What I need to do is look at what the issues were when we had the little blips that we had this season like at Christmas time.

“I don’t think it helped that I had an absence on health grounds – hopefully that won’t happen again.

“We can try to rectify any issues that we had and make ourselves better because we are very close to being one of the top sides in this division.

“If I can make us that little bit stronger and I have already identified targets which I think will make us strongerthen we will have a very good chance next season because I think we have the nucleus of a very good squad.”

Fell revealed he is hopeful of retaining the vast majority of his squad although he admitted the current unprecedent times means things are going to be very different going forward.

“I have had conference calls with the chairman and my staff in terms of potential ins and outs with regards to the squad; planning for pre-season,” he said. “What I will say is this is going to be very different even when we get back to playing football.

“When you think about it a normal pre-season is not going to cut it because the lads will have had a longer break from playing.

“So we are going to need an extended pre-season and it’s probably going to need to be more rigorous than normal.

“We are going to need more pre-season friendlies – the whole thing is going to be completely different.

“What I will say is that we are trying to steal a march on that in terms of planning for every eventuality and trying to get ahead of the game.

“The management teams which react well enough to this and get this right will have a big advantage come the start of the season. So we are trying to make sure we are well ahead with our plans.”