Baffins Milton Rovers to start season without club record scorer Jason Parish – while ‘biggest headache’ is who will play in goal in Wessex League opener

Boss Danny Thompson won’t risk the striker for Tuesday’s Wessex League Premier curtain-raiser at home to Hamble Club.

Parish played 45 minutes in Rovers’ final pre-season friendly at step 6 club Godalming last weekend, but is nursing a sore ankle.

Injury restricted him to appearing in just 23 of Baffins’ 40 Wessex games last season, and Thompson is playing it safe.

‘It’s not worth risking,’ he told The News. ‘We’ve got Friday night (FA Cup tie at home to Alton) to think about as well.

‘Alpay Ali has come in and done well, Kelvin Robinson has done well, Joe Johnson has scored a few pre-season goals - we’re not short of firepower.

‘There’s no point risking Jason and him then being out for four or five weeks.’

It will be a new-look Baffins squad that is sent into action tomorrow. Of the 18 players taken to Godalming, only three - Parish, Miles Everett and Ed Sanders - ended last season at the club.

Harvey Welham and Fuzz Kanjanda could also be added to the weekend squad.

Thompson still doesn’t know who will feature in goal against Hamble, a game that has been switch to Portsea Island as Hamble’s pitch is not yet ready. Following the loss of last season’s regular keeper Konrad Szymaniak to Shaftesbury, he has signed youngsters Roux Hardcastle and Dylan Kramer.

Hardcastle is part of the Eastleigh development squad, while Kramer was a Wessex regular for US Portsmouth last term. ‘It’s my biggest headache,’ said the manager. ‘I’m still undecided.’

Kramer is just one of several ex-US players signed by Thompson this summer - others are Frankie Paige, Owen Scammell and Obi Saidy. Dale Mason, who ended last season at US, has also returned to the PMC Stadium.

Saidy and Ryan Kennedy started in central defence at Godalming on a pitch that Thompson condemned as ‘the worst I’ve seen in all my time in non-league football.

‘It was rock solid, there were chunks of grass missing. We were that close to turning round and coming home.

‘It was a bit disappointing, you couldn’t play any football because the pitch was so bad.’

Among a host of competitive debuts against Hamble could be first starts for defenders Kye Harttt and Jack Francis.

Hartt, a left-back, played for Baffins’ under-23s last season, the squad winning the second tier of the Mid-Solent League at the first time of asking. Francis, a right-back, ended last term at Wessex divisional rivals Blackfield & Langley.

Thompson said it was Baffins’ own idea to bring forward Saturday’s FA Cup extra preliminary round tie to Friday evening.

They therefore avoid a clash with Pompey, and are hoping for an attendance boost as a result of being the only game on in the area that evening.