Pre-season campaign gets underway at Horsham FC as international duo commit for new season
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A triallist bagged a double for the Hornets as they opened pre-season with a 2-2 draw at home to Met Police on Friday night.
Horsham played out a thrilling 3-3 home draw with Erith on Tuesday evening. Jack Mazzone, Jack Strange and Shamir Fenelon were on the scoresheet for the hosts.
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Hide AdThe Hornets’ friendly schedule continues on Saturday with a home game against Maidstone before a trip to Dorking on Tuesday (7.45pm).
Di Paola said: “Friday night, in the first half, I thought we were really good but in the second half I thought we were really poor.
“Last [Tuesday] night I thought we were pretty poor in the first half, and then excellent in the second half. We could have scored a lot of goals and they didn’t really trouble us.
“But it’s going okay, we’re just slowly building it up. It’s just about getting people up to speed.
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Hide Ad“The things we’ve got to sharpen up are the obvious things, like work out of possession. We’ve now got three tough games which will give us a good chance to work out of possession a bit.”
Horsham have also further boosted their ranks with Guyanese internationals Matthew Briggs and Kadell Daniel.
Ex-Fulham defender Briggs joins from Gosport, while Daniel has re-signed for the club.
Di Paola added: “He [Briggs] has got lots of experience in this league. Sometimes we can be a bit naive, but he’s a good communicator, a good leader, and good in the dressing room, which is what you want.
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Hide Ad“I spoke to Briggsy in the summer, and at the time I didn’t think Kadell was coming back as he had talked about maybe moving on.
“But me and Kads had a couple of chats and we agreed we were going to be okay.”
Horsham have also discovered their 2023-24 Isthmian Premier itinerary.
The Hornets will open the season at home to last season’s play-off finalists Hornchurch on August 12.
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Hide AdDi Paola said: “We’ve got five of the favourites in the first nine. It’s going to give us a tough start, but that’s fine. It’s kind of to be expected in this league.”