We felt it was the best way for the club to progress to get an edge on the rest of the
"We felt it was the best way for the club to progress, to get an edge on the rest of the teams in the Premier Division, and to climb into the Conference," Pat Nixon, their secretary, said yesterday.About half of last season's squad were unable to make the transition to full-time football and have moved on. They have been replaced, according to Nixon, by "good young players" who have been released by League clubs and are looking for another chance.Last season's title-winning manager, Gary Mills, was unhappy with all the changes and has been succeeded by Danny Bergara, the Uruguayan who took Stockport County to Wembley four times."We're lucky to have him," Nixon said. "He has massive experience and is a superb coach." Bergara has signed some experienced performers like his new player-coach, the former Grimsby midfielder Dave Gilbert, and the ex-Mansfield defender Wayne Fairclough, but most of the new signings are youngsters.The most impressive arrival so far is the 22-year-old former Darlington midfielder Gary Twynham, who was a trainee at Manchester United alongside Beckham, Butt, Scholes and the Nevilles. However, the club has undergone an upheaval in the close season - thanks to the involvement of Reg Brealey, the former Sheffield United chairman. Brealey's Antrac Investment Company, the major shareholder in Grantham Town, has funded a full-time playing squad. Their Danish international Brian Laudrup, who last played in the World Cup quarter-final against Brazil, may make his debut..
IT IS not standard practice for a club to win a championship and then spend the summer replacing the manager and most of the playing staff That, though, is what has happened at Grantham Town. The Gingerbreads, as the Lincolnshire side are known, won the Dr Martens League Midland Division last term, and with it promotion to the Premier Division. THE CHELSEA defender Franck Leboeuf has warned his team-mates to expect an "awful" pitch in Monaco when they play Real Madrid in tonight's European Super Cup. The French World Cup winner is annoyed that the Blues are likely to face a surface as bumpy as the one on which they won the Cup-Winners' Cup final last season against VfB Stuttgart in Sweden. He said: "I will have to say that the pitch will be awful, I know that already.
After the Cup-Winners' Cup final in Stockholm, it will be the second time for us so it's a pity we can't play on a good pitch."The player-manager Gianluca Vialli was less concerned when he heard about the state of the pitch, which lies on top of an underground parking area. He joked: "Really? So we've got a chance, then!"Either way, the Blues realise they are playing for prestige in a relatively meaningless match which pits them, as Cup-Winners' Cup winners, against the European Cup holders. They have never played Bayern Munich, who finished second in Germany's Bundesliga, in Europe before.Brondby won the Danish title and Cup last season, but United will feel confident after beating them 6-0 in a pre-season friendly.Arsene Wenger will go back to his native France to start Arsenal's Champions' League challenge against Lens next month. 9 Dec: Manchester Utd v Bayern Munich, Panathinaikos v Arsenal.CHAMPIONS' LEAGUE DRAWGROUP AAjax (Neth)Porto (Por)Olympiakos Piraeus (Gr)Croatia ZagrebGROUP BGalatasaray (Turk)Athletic Bilbao (Sp)Rosenborg Trondheim (Nor)Juventus (It)GROUP CSpartak Moscow (Rus)Real Madrid (Sp)Internazionale (It)Sturm Graz (Aut)GROUP DBarcelona (Sp)Brondby (Den)Bayern Munich (Ger)Manchester UnitedGROUP EDynamo Kiev (Ukr)Lens (Fr)ArsenalPanathinaikos (Gr)GROUP FBenfica (Por)PSV Eindhoven (Neth)HJK Helsinki (Fin)Kaiserslautern (Ger). 30 Sept: Bayern Munich v Manchester Utd, Arsenal v Panathinaikos 21 Oct: Brondby v Manchester Utd; Arsenal v Dynamo Kiev 4 Nov: Manchester Utd v Brondby, Dynamo Kiev v Arsenal 25 Nov: Barcelona v Manchester Utd, Arsenal v Lens.
