COLWYN Bay have made a late addition to their squad ahead of today’s opening home match against Garforth Town (3pm) in the Division One North by signing winger Karl Brown from Warrington Town.

It will be the third stint at Llanelian Road for Brown, who started his career with Derby County and had a season in Spanish League football with Getafe before spells with Hednesford Town, Stafford Rangers and Leek Town.

Striker Jamie McIntosh is ruled out by a two-match suspension held over from last season, but otherwise manager Steve Pope expects to have a full-strength squad to choose from for what he expects to be a very challenging game.

Garforth’s manager is Simon Clifford, who started the Brazilian Soccer Schools in Britain.

A number of his players are graduates from those schools.

The Yorkshire side have scored 13 goals in their three pre-season games and are already rated among the favourites to gain a place in the end of season play-offs.

Pope said: “They are technically good and pass the ball well, but they can also look after themselves in a physical contest, so it will be a very tough game for us.

“But there will be no easy games in this league. Every team we have had a chance to look at during pre-season has impressed us and it is a very tough league.

“But after starting from scratch eight weeks ago we have put together a decent squad who want to do well. We had a fantastic training session on Wednesday when there was a great atmosphere and everybody was flying – now they can’t wait to get started.”

With a squad of around 18, the manager says he won’t announce his line-up until an hour before the kick off.