Kingsley James has praised the way the Chester FC’ s pre-season has been structured by manager Jon McCarthy.
The Blues midfielder got himself on the score sheet as Chester opened their pre-season campaign with a comfortable 5-1 success at North West Counties League side Runcorn Town on Monday evening.
Goals from Evan Horwood, James, Harry White, Liam Davies and Nyal Bell secured the success for McCarthy’s new-look side at the Pavilions, where the new summer additions were all on show.
While the game was Chester’s first of a packed three weeks before the National League season kicks off on August 5, they have been in training since the middle of July and have been putting in the hard yards in a bid to give themselves the best possible start to the campaign.
And while three games in four days for the next two weeks might seem intense, James believes it is the perfect preparation.
“We’ve done a lot of ball work in training and it has been really intense,” said James, who will be back in action for the Blues this evening when they travel to Flint Town United (7.30pm kick-off).
“The intensity have been there but nothing can give you what the game is going to throw, it’s so much different to doing training.
“It has been structured by the gaffer in a really good way where we have got a lot of volume in the first few weeks and a lot of games in the following two weeks. You can go flat out in the 45 minutes you are playing and play at the right intensity, which we did tonight (Monday). It wasn’t a typical pre-season game and we wanted to go with that intensity and do what we want to do in league games.”
James nodded home from a Paul Turnbull corner to put Chester 2-0 up on Monday night.
The midfielder, who rejoined the club from Macclesfield Town last month on a two-year deal, isn’t known for his goal scoring exploits but he hopes he can find the target when it really matters this season.
He said: “It all depends. Hopefully I can chip in with a few goals, I’ve scored enough in the last couple of seasons to help out. With the attacking players that we have got I’m going to back them up. You give them the ball and let them do their things. I might chip in with a few but I just want to do my best for the club.”
Chester FC travel to Cae-Y-Castell this evening to take on Welsh Alliance side Flint Town United. We will be live from 7pm with updates on the blog.
