DESPITE the "enormous amount of progress" made by Braintree Town since the end of last season, chairman Lee Harding knows there is still plenty of hard graft ahead to keep them competitive in the Vanarama National League this season.

It is set to be a big leap for the Iron when they return to the top flight of non-league football on Saturday - with a home game against FC Halifax Town -after their successful promotion via the National League South play-offs last year.

And Harding said work had been intense over the summer period to make sure they were ready to hit the ground running.

However, he is under no illusion about how much is still to go and said late changes to the squad could still have a big impact on how they may fare this season.

“In a compressed closed season we have made a lot of progress," said Harding.

“We started two weeks behind most others because of the extra three games we had in the play-offs, but we’re delighted we had them and that we won them.

“There is an enormous amount of progress been made but still an enormous amount required in taking a club that finished sixth in the south division and making them competitive in the league above.

“That progress and work is still ongoing.

“In all my years involved here, some of the best players who we have signed have been in the week or two before the season starts.

“Every week myself, Brad (Quinton) and Barry (Bolton) have had a head count and looked at the money and we’re working very hard.

“You think you’re getting there and then Fred Bloggs becomes available and you have to move things around if you want to try to get him in, so things are still ongoing.

“You saw against Chelmsford that we had good people come and wear the colours as trialists and Brad’s like a kid in sweet shop at the moment.

“However, we also need to be mindful of the financial limitations we impose upon ourselves as we have to be sensibly cautious.

“This week may see further changes."

Those changes could also go on past the first game of the season as Braintree are unrestricted by the limitations of a transfer window now, unlike how it was when they were previously in the National League under some former Iron bosses.

And Harding thinks that could be helpful for the club.

Harding added: “It will be evolving over the next few weeks.

“It had to be different when we came into the National League under Alan Devonshire seven years ago because we were subject to a transfer window that Football League clubs had.

“That has now changed so it only applies to clubs in the Football League.

“We had similar resources to spend when Alan took over and when I was looking back at figures from that time the other day, I saw how we were pulling and stretching our money to try to provide a bit more cover within the squad.

“We knew we wouldn’t be able to change things then until the January, so looking back then, we had quantity but perhaps not so much quality then.

“That season we only finished 12th!

“Now, I think we have good quality and it will be interesting to see over the course of the next few weeks how things evolve.

“I think Brad has said the same thing, but the way I see it, the team we start the season with may not be the one we have at Christmas and at the end of the season.

“There are so many different areas that we are looking at with regards to sales and marketing and we’ve had some fairly good news recently with regards to the ground that we’ll be able to tell people about soon.

“This has been the busiest summer – compressed as it has been – that I can remember in a long long time.

“There are lots of things going on and we’re working hard on getting all the good deals that we’re working so hard on finalised, but it’s better than where we were 12 months ago when we’d just been relegated, no-one wanted to speak to us, no-one wanted to buy our ground and we had nowhere to go to.

“The last 12 months have certainly seen us turn our fortunes around.”