Cirencester Town’s players are looking forward to training on the club’s new state-of-the-art 4G pitch later this month.

Work on the £475,000 project is due to be completed in the next few weeks and manager Charlie Griffin is hoping his players will soon get their first runout on the new surface.

The Southern League Division One South and West club host Cheltenham Town Under-23s and Swindon Town Under-18s in pre-season friendlies in the next couple of weeks but those games may have to be played on the academy grass pitches at the ground.

Those fixtures are two of 10 games that have already been planned before the league campaign kicks off on Saturday 12th August.

Griffin, 38 and a top non-League striker for many years, is looking forward to seeing his players perform on the 4G pitch this season.

“It’s going to be something special,” he said. “It’s not going to change the way I think. It’s still 11 v 11 and I’m looking forward to it, it’s going to be good.

“For clubs like Cirencester a 4G pitch helps gets the community involved and it also brings some money into the club.”

Cirencester began their pre-season campaign at Bradford Town on Saturday and went down 5-2. Not that Griffin is concerned by the defeat.

“We were 2-0 up and cruising,” said Griffin. “I changed it around in the second half because I wanted to have a look at a few different players.

“We could have been three or four up in the first half because we missed two or three good chances.

“Bradford started pre-season before us and are probably seven to 10 days ahead of us in terms of fitness but it’s all a learning process at this stage.”

One of Cirencester’s pre-season fixtures is a GFA Cup final against Bristol City Under-23s at Almondsbury on Wednesday 2nd August.

“The game was supposed to have been played at the end of last season,” said Griffin, “but there wasn’t a date free when we could play the game at Almondsbury.”

Cirencester Town’s pre-season fixtures: Tues 11th July, v Longlevens (a, 7.45pm); Sat 15th July, v Malmesbury Vic (a, 3pm); Tues 18th July, v Tuffley R (a, 7.45pm); Thurs 20th July, v Fairford T (a, 7.45pm); Sat 22nd July, v Cheltenham T u-23s (h, 3pm); Tues 25th July, Swindon T u-18s (h, 7.45pm); Sat, 29th July, v Shrivenham (a, 3pm); Wed 2nd Aug, v Bristol C u-23s (GFA Cup final, at Almondsbury, 7.30pm); Fri 4th Aug, Newport City (a, 7.45pm).