With Southern League football possibly on the none-too-distant horizon, club chairman Iain Humphrey was understandably anxious to tie down to the club some of his better players.

Accordingly UCL manager-of-the-year Martyn Walker has been authorised to hand out long-term contracts to leading goalscorers Tom Berwick and Danny Nelson as well as talented teenager Tom James.

"A fourth player may also be offered a deal," said Walker, who clearly wants to hold onto the bulk of the first team squad which walked away with the First Division championship by 20 points from Peterborough NS.
Berwick has notched 67 goals for the Town in two seasons since leaving Rugby Town while Nelson also found the net on 25 occasions during the triumphant 2007-2008 campaign.

Young James moved to Communications Park after short spells with Leamington and Woodford United but has almost unlimited potential as a left back. Coventry City, Aston Villa and Wolves also featured on his schoolboy curriculum vitae.

Clearly the Daventry chairman has at the back of his mind that he will personally have to pay me £250 if the Town fail to win the UCL Premier Division title race next season.

In my experience only Woodford goalkeeper Matt Finlay has been given a comparable deal in local football and that after all was at Southern League level.

Talking of goalkeepers Daventry number one Joe Mellings has undergone second thoughts about doing a degree course at Stanford University in the USA and the former England Under 19s international is staying put with the Town.

Meanwhile the club's reserve team will be under new management after underachieving somewhat in the UCL Division Two last season.

Ex-Town goalkeeper Craig Humries – his father Roy is a former club chairman – will take over as manager with Paul Atkins trebling up as player-coach assistant.

Long Buckby's second string will return to the UCL fold with ex-Ravensthorpe manager Rob Jones in charge, assisted by former club player Richard Crockett.

The Bucks' Premier Division build-up will start at Earls Barton on July 12 with matches against Sileby Rangers and Daventry United lined up for the following week.

In the Andy Humphries Memorial Cup, Harpole will visit Station Road after doing the Northamptonshire Combination's League-Cup double while Conference League Rushden and Diamonds provide the opposition on August 5.