Devonshire expects more to follow Sparkes as training starts (From Braintree and Witham Times)

Devonshire expects more to follow Sparkes as training starts

8:45am Thursday 28th June 2012 in Sport By Simon Spurgeon

Having secured his first signing of the summer, Braintree Town manager Alan Devonshire says there will “definitely” be more to follow in the coming days.

Devonshire was delighted to add left-sided midfielder Daniel Sparkes to his squad after he joined from Blue Square Bet North side Histon.

And with current players returning for pre-season training on Saturday along with other potential targets, the Iron boss is confident that Sparkes won’t be the last of his summer additions.

He said: “We’ve got them coming in to start training on Saturday and there might be some more signed soon.

“There’ll definitely be something done as we’re close to agreeing things with one or two.

“A lot of people are coming down on Saturday in all different positions.

“They aren’t really trialists because they are people I know about and we’ve asked them to come along so we can have a closer look at them.

“We have a lot of games coming up in our pre-season schedule and I’m going to have to make my decisions early.”

The training session will give Sparkes a first chance to meet up with his new team-mates.

The 20-year-old scored 13 times from his 44 starts for Histon last year and Devonshire said he is someone who he has been tracking for some time.

Devonshire said: “He gives us natural balance on the left, which is what I wanted.

“Jai Reason did a good job there for us last year, but I knew he would probably be leaving and Daniel was the best of the replacements we were looking at.

“He can score goals, gets crosses in and can beat people and we want to enhance that.

“He wants to play at the higher level and is exactly the type of player we need to be looking at as he is someone we can help to develop.

“I’ve seen enough to know he can do well at Conference Premier level and I hope that’s the case as he wants to learn.”

Braintree will have to pay Histon a fee for Sparkes, but Devonshire said that would be covered by fees they will receive after Reason and Ben Wright left this summer.

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