ALBION Sports have pulled out of one friendly and turned down another for next week as manager Kulwinder Sandhu regroups his newlook squad.

The Lions lost six of last season’s first-team regulars in the close season and Sandhu has had to use all of his local knowledge and contacts to recruit replacements. He has replenished his pool of players now but has one eye on next Saturday’s season opening FA Cup tie.

The Albion boss said: “We should have been playing Brighouse Town at their place on Monday night but I rang them last week and explained the situation.

“We’ve got a few players away on holiday and a couple of lads carrying injuries and I didn’t want to turn up with a team of young lads because that wouldn’t have made it the fixture Brighouse were expecting.

“I wouldn’t do that because I don’t want to be disrespectful to Brighouse. They are a great club and they’ve been brilliant with us down the years and were good enough to offer us an away friendly this year.

“It’s always difficult for us at this time of year because we don’t have our own ground and can’t arrange home friendly games. We have to rely on the kindness, friendship and generosity of our friends in the game to get enough warm-up games organised.”

The Lions have only had three games building up to next weekend’s extra-preliminary round tie at Harrogate Railway Athletic.

Having informed Brighouse Town that they would have to cancel, they were offered a game by landlords Farsley Celtic at Throstle Nest, the ground the clubs share.

Sandhu (pictured) added: “Farsley wanted to play us but the same goes for them as Brighouse. We wouldn’t let them down by fielding a scratch side and making a mockery of the fixture.

“We will just have a couple of light training sessions this week to ease the lads carrying knocks through. Then we will get the players back who are away and we can go into the first game of the season, which is a very important FA Cup tie.

“As we all know, a little run in that competition can set a club like ours up for the season.”