It’s been a busy off-season on and off the pitch ahead of our first ever Step 4 campaign. 

We’ve had four friendlies to help us prepare, seen a large number of the squad return to challenge themselves at a higher level and brought in a some new signings who have already made quite the impression across our pre-season fixtures.

The work hasn’t stopped behind the scenes either as we’ve been working hard to improve the matchday experience down at the Regal Interiors Stadium including some brand new food stalls that will be in use when we host Pontefract in a few weeks time.

Alongside that we’re looking to introduce our ‘Family Communal Area’ to encourage more families to come down and enjoy a game together, we’d like to give a massive thank you to all our new and existing sponsors for helping these improvements become reality!

We’ve also seen Silsden Whitestar begin their pre-season campaign down at Keighley Road, with the link between the first team and Whitestar now helping to provide a clearer development pathway for local talent.

Following our title win last season we all knew it would be important to keep the core of that squad together and it’s fantastic to see so many of the lads returning back for the new campaign, some of whom will be taking on their first ever season at step 4, but it’s a challenge their prepared for after some brilliant pre-season performances against tough opposition.

We’re also delighted to welcome 5 new faces to the club: Tommy Brown, Sam Barker, Jordan Carroll, Jerome Greaves and Jorge Sikora as we look to build on last season’s historic promotion and continue to achieve success.

Our first opportunity to see the lads in action came on Friday 8th July against a well organised Barnoldswick side who were slightly ahead in terms of their preparation and despite some positive spells we fell to a 3-0 defeat.

The lads brushed themselves down however and headed to Harrogate Railway for a midweek game. A much better performance followed as Luke Brooksbank and Jerome Greaves (Trialist C at this point) bagged the goals to secure a comfortable 2-0 victory, Tommy Brown will also be pleased with his clean sheet!

National League North side Curzon Ashton we’re the first visitors to the Regal Interiors this season as we battled hard, showed plenty of grit and came away with a 1-1 draw courtesy of Jake Cassidy’s late spot kick, another positive result as we edged closer to the start of the season.

After his impressive performances last campaign, Harry Coates has been named as our new captain and despite his absence in our final fixture against Guiseley we were still able to secure a fantastic 2-1 win over step 3 opposition.

Three new signings played a big part, Sikora looking solid at the back, Carroll with a MOTM performance in midfield and Sam Barker scoring a fantastic solo-goal all contributed alongside set-piece specialist Toby Jeffrey scoring direct from a corner in an overall impressive performance in front of a bumper crowd.

That leads us on to our opening fixture as we face familiar opposition in the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round on Saturday with a trip to NCEL side Handsworth.

Our League campaign gets started the following Friday away to Emley before we look forward to welcoming you all down for our first ever Northern Premier League game at the Regal Interiors Stadium on Tuesday 12th August!

For a full league fixture list see below…

It’s going to be a historic season for us all here at Silsden AFC and we can’t wait for you all to be a part of our journey!

UP THE SILS!