Ricky Ravenhill column

So the new season is upon us and it could hardly be a tougher start to life in League One than Bristol City away.

It’ll be a good benchmark for us to see where we are at – one of the promotion favourites away from home.

It’s the first game of the season and we’ve worked hard for a month now. We just want to make sure that we are there or thereabouts in the gaffer’s thoughts for this first game.

Whether we are on the pitch or the bench, we’ll all be looking to play our part and beat Bristol on Saturday.

Harrogate Town was a good run-out for us on Tuesday. They put a strong team out and, to be fair to them, they were big, strong and physical.

It was like a proper game – they had a good go and it meant a lot to them to beat us. Fair play, they stuck their foot in and ruffled our feathers a little bit.

It was a good work-out alongside Jason Kennedy, who I’ve played with before up at Darlington. He likes to put his foot on the ball and I think we did okay in spells on Tuesday night.

It’s a learning curve and about getting fit. You have to take what you can out of a pre-season game and it was great to have Luke Oliver back.

He has been there or thereabouts around the training ground for a few weeks now and has been training with us.

We’ve seen more of him than the media and the fans but it was great to see him back out on the pitch. Ollie has been fantastic for this club and it can only benefit us to have him back fit.

Raffaele De Vita signed for us this week and looks set to be another quality signing.

I played against Raffa a couple of years ago and I’ve not seen a great deal of him but I’ve seen him in training and he’s got a good touch.

He’s only going to be another asset for us and the gaffer is obviously confident of the qualities he can add to the squad.