Release: Longford Town vs Sporting Fingal
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Sporting Fingal Football Club will begin life in the eircom League of Ireland First Division on Saturday when they play their first game of the season against Longford Town at Flancare Park.
Manager Liam Buckley has been busy during the pre-season assembling a new squad from scratch and is pleased with the quality of his recruits.
Buckley, together with his assistant manager John Devine, has worked hard to gel the squad of players in the run-up to the new season and, in that regard, two recent friendly matches against UCD and Bray Wanderers proved extremely valuable.
He said: "I am happy with how our pre-season preparations have gone, especially considering that we had been working towards participating within the new 'A' Championship this summer until the FAI invited us to join the First Division in January following the unfortunate withdrawal of Kilkenny City from the league.
"We have signed 25 players and they are all chomping at the bit to get started in the new season.
"Longford Town at Flancare Park on Saturday evening will be a difficult game to start with. I expect that their manager Aaron Callaghan will have his team well organised and competitive as they bid for promotion back to the Premier Division at the first attempt."
Sporting will be without Robbie Doyle as the striker serves a suspension carried over from last season. Also unavailable for the opening fixture due of injuries are Paul Malone (calf), Davy Sullivan (jaw) and Joe Clancy (foot).
Both Malone and Sullivan are making good progress in their comebacks but Clancy will be out for a number of weeks as he is recovering from a broken metatarsal bone.
Midfielder Paul Caffrey has been appointed captain of Sporting and is looking forward to the campaign getting underway.
"All the players can't wait to play out first game against Longford Town on Saturday. We've been impressed by the training sessions put on by Liam and John Devine but now we want to season to get started," he said.
"It is important in any league campaign to get off to a good start and that's what we'll be hoping to do at Flancare Park."
