Ashington assistant manager Ian Skinner says that the Colliers want to start next season where they left off.

The appointment of Steve Harmison as manager with Skinner as his assistant lifted Ashington at a crucial stage of the season, and they almost crowned the season by reaching the league cup final, but were removed for fielding an ineligible player.

“We want to carry on our momentum from last season,” said Skinner. “We’ve added to the squad, because the previous one was a little threadbare, and it was always our aim to bring in at least six players.”

Harmison hit the headlines when the former England fast bowler became a football manager, and Skinner says that he has adjusted well to the hurly-burly life in the Northern League.

“Steve is taking all of this in his stride. His man management is very very good, and he’s very much a down-to-earth bloke and one of the lads. He’s very unassuming.

“Steve and I see this as a long term project. We’re not going to be stupid and say that we’re going to win the league, we just want to improve on last season’s position of midtable. We’ll be disappointed if we’re not in the top ten and don’t have a good cup run.

“An FA Cup run will go down nicely, because our new stand is on schedule to be completed in October.”

The Colliers have lost three players from last season’s squad. Glen Taylor, Lance McGlen and Wayne Buchanan have all left, while Matty Grieve, Liam Atkin, Gareth Williams, Adam Shanks, Michael Bell and Steve Skinner have all arrived.