ROSS Jenkins is excited to get Oxford City’s historic Vanarama National League campaign underway.
The Hoops are set to play at the highest level in their history when they make the trip to Aldershot Town tomorrow.
Head coach Jenkins is pleased with how pre-season has gone for the club, and is ready for the campaign to get going.
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He said: “It’s been a lot of work behind the scenes to get us into a good place on and off the pitch.
“Pre-season has gone really well, we’ve had some real good competitive games and got some good distance into our legs.
“It feels like it’s gone quite quick, which is normally a good sign.
“I think everyone’s excited now just to get on with it on Saturday.”
Discussing the step up his side will face this season, Jenkins said: “As it stands, we don’t know until we get a few more games under our belt.
“Once we get four, five or maybe six games, I think we’ll know the level and know where we are.
“We’re not naive and we’re not stupid but at the same time, we do need to get some experience and those early games are valuable.
“I think it’s a real good learning curve, the first part of the season.
“We’ve got to be sensible and understand there might be difficult games, or games that we don’t have all the possession.
“We might not get the results we want but we’ve got to fully understand that.
“At the same time, we do believe that what we’re doing is good work. The boys believe in it and we’re training well.”
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The former Watford midfielder added: “It’s definitely a harder league in terms of physicality. There are a lot of full-time clubs and full-time players that are physically strong, mobile and aggressive.
“They get to work on things all week, so we’ve got to understand that and appreciate that, but at the same time, we’ve got to go beyond it and do our thing.
“We don’t know the players and league as much as we do in the National League South so we can’t concentrate too much on something we’re unaware of.
“We’ve got to appreciate the standard and level, meet the level and raise our standards again.”
Despite the anticipation surrounding the game, Jenkins is wary of the threats that Aldershot possess.
He said: “They know the league inside out, the manager’s very experienced, they’ve got some really good players.
“They’ve had a lot of players come through the door, adding to their squad and improving their squad.
“It’s going to be a really competitive game, it’s a bit of an old school place to go with a real feel to it.
“I’m excited for the boys to hopefully show what they’re good at and give a good reflection of themselves and the football club.”
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