July
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We kick off the new season with several new faces in the team, Mark Walton, Dave Greene and Andy Thompson are all set to make their debuts for City with loan player Daniel Gabbidon likely to start on the bench.

City are set to line up as follows. Walton, Thompson, Brazier, Young, Greene, Low, Bowen, Fowler, Boland, Nugent and Brayson. Subs to be selected from Hallworth, Eckhardt, Bonner, Gabbidon, Hill and Earnshaw.

Danny Hill and Mark Bonner both had successful run outs in last Wednesdays youth team game and are both available. City are without Andy Legg, suspended, and Russell Perret, injured. Kurt Nogan who has been placed on the transfer list will not travel to Devon.

City will be looking for a solid effort from the defence, in preseason Young and Green have performed well and if we are to suceed this coming season they will have to ensure as many clean sheets as possible. Upfront the man in form is Paul Brayson, he has scored in his last two matches and has shown a considerable ammount of pace.

Exeter will have Steve Flack, Chris Roberts and John Cornforth in their squad. The other ex City player Lee Baddely last night signed for Merthyr Tydfil, he played for the Martyrs along with Dai Thomas in a game that Methyr won 3 - 0. Dai apparantly having a great game.

Exeter are likely to use the following squad. van Heusden, Ashton, Burrows, Curran, Whitworth, Campbell, Roscoe, Cornforth, Inglethorpe, Ampadu, Fraser, Rawlinson, D Roberts, C Roberts and Flack.

Ashton you may recall was linked to Cardiff at the end of last season, he moved to Exeter from Plymouth. Also Amadu was strongly linked to Cardiff when his old boss at Swansea, Frank Burrows, was in charge at Ninian Park.

The game at St James Park will be heavily policed. A fine sunny day is expected, over 1600 City fans travelling down the M5 will be hoping to see Cardiff start the season with a win. Our last game at Exeter was during the promotion season and we won 2 - 0 thanks to two goals from Kevin Nugent. The same again tomorrow would be more than welcome.

Please have a safe and trouble free day.

Preview from Exeweb.
Noel Blake's brand new Exeter City side will take to the field for their first competitive outing together tomorrow against Cardiff. The boss will select a team from a squad containing 14 new faces to St. James Park regulars.  In fact, skipper Chris Curran could be the only player to have played last season and be selected tomorrow! "Generally I am quite pleased with the way the squad is knitting together," Noel told the Express & Echo. "There have been one or two things that I've not been quite as happy with and neither have the players.
"We had a long discussion on Wednesday, everybody was asked to have an input and virtually all of them made a contribution. They have got to be happy with the system they are playing and I believe in asking the players for their opinions. "I am very, very pleased with the players' attitudes - they've now had enough of pre-season friendlies and want to get down to the real nitty-gritty." Barry McConnell, Jukka Vanninen and Graeme Power are all definite non-starters, whilst there are doubts over John Wilkinson, Graeme Tomlinson and Rob Speakman.

Cardiff will be looking to start their new season with a victory.  Following last season's drop from Division 2, they start this year with a new owner and manager in Wimbledon old boys Sam Hammam and Bobby Gould. Billy Ayre - now the Bluebirds' assistant manager - will be in charge for the first game of the new campaign as he has been preparing for it all summer. New signings Mark Walton, Dave Greene and Andy Thompson are all expected to make their debuts for Cardiff with loan player Daniel Gabbidon likely to start on the bench.

We should see a large crowd at the Park tomorrow.  Let's hope that we can get this season off to a great start without any trouble.