Peterborough Sports determined to keep improving, ex-Posh 'keeper joins Bourne Town and local lad gives GB Deaflympics hopes a boost

The city club have named a leadership group of goalkeeper Peter Crook, central defender Ryan Fryatt and long-serving striker Mark Jones as they seek to continue their gradual improvement at step two level.

Sports collected a record of number of points when finishing 12th last season, five places and 14 points off the play-off places.

The captains were interviewed by club media this week with Crook saying: “We appear to have a good core of youth and experience now and hopefully it will lead to a good season.

“The ambition is to better last season in terms of points and finishing position and maybe have a push at the play-offs. We’re also due a good FA Cup run and end up playing one of the EFL clubs.”

Jones, who is starting his 10th season at Sports, added: “The expectations at this level are survival and mid-table, but also on improving on last season. We want to keep progressing on and off the field.

"We got ourselves into a good position last season when different results in two or three games could have seen us pushing for the play-offs. We want to beat last season and give it a push at the top of the table.”

The National League North fixtures were due to be released on Wednesday (July 9) with the opening games scheduled for Saturday, August 9. Visit www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk for the schedule.

Sports host two League One clubs in the space of a handful of days with Grant McCann’s Doncaster Rovers visiting PIMS Park on Saturday (July 12, 3pm) with Posh following them on Tuesday, July 15 (7.45pm).

DEAFLYMPICS

Ex-Posh Deaf forward Will Palmer has given his chances of a place in the Great Britain Deaflympics squad in Tokyo, Japan in November a boost.

Palmer scored for England Deaf in a 2-0 win over Italy at St George’s Park. The match took place while Posh were training at England’s headquarters.

Palmer now has five goals in 17 appearances for England.

BOURNE TOWN Former Posh youth team goalkeeper Will Lakin has joined Bourne ahead of their first season of step four football. Lakin made his club debut in a 7-0 friendly defeat at the hands of Dorking Wanderers. The visitors play two divisions above Bourne. Local forward Zak Munton has left Bourne.

PDFLUK

The top two divisions of the Peterborough & District League will kick off on Saturday, August 9. Divisions 2-4 will start on August 16.

The Peterborough Sunday Morning League will begin on September 7 with the opening matches in the Peterborough & District Youth League scheduled for September 16.

The competition’s League Cup FInal, played between the Premier Division champions (Uppingham Town) and the Senior Cup winners (Warboys Town), will take place on Friday, August 1 (7.30pm) at Blackstones FC.