Eccleshill United have one home friendly confirmed and have accepted an invitation to a pre-season tournament at Liversedge.

The Eagles will host Scarborough Athletic on Saturday, July 14 and will then head to Clayborn as guests of Sedge, playing more than one game over the weekend of July 28-29. Full details and other participating teams have yet to be confirmed.

Eccleshill boss Ian Banks said: “Scarborough are in the division above us so that should be a good test for our lads.

“We expect to confirm some more home friendlies but it is difficult to arrange because of the work being done on our pitch.

“We are going to try to flatten it out a bit more. It has improved a lot over the last three or four years and we hope to have it even better for the new season. We need a decent surface because we like to play football.

“All the players from last season have been invited back but they are all free agents. There are no contracts at this level because we simply can’t afford it.

“We can’t force them to come back and we can’t stop them signing for other clubs but we hope all the players that finished the season with us return.

“They have been asked to report back for training at the end of June but we haven’t set a date as yet.”

The players will need to be in training fairly early as the Baris Northern Counties East League have announced that their season will begin on Saturday, August 4.

In a statement on the league’s website, they say that due to the FA Cup extra-preliminary round being scheduled for August 11 the member clubs did not wish their first competitive fixture to be an FA Cup tie.

Eccleshill, Brighouse Town, Thackley, Liversedge and Albion Sports are all likely to be involved, unless they receive a bye.

It will be Albion’s debut in the world’s oldest and most famous club knockout competition.