With the start of pre-season looming, manager Dean Thomas and his managerial team are hard at work preparing for the new campaign. To that end the club would like to announce that former Camberley Town goalkeeper Craig Bradshaw has agreed to join the club for the new season to partner fellow goalkeeper Luke Badiali in the first team squad. He also joins fellow former Camberley Town players Perry Coles and Bobby Dormer in announcing their commitment to Guildford City for the coming season.
31 year old Bradshaw attended Bishop Reindorp School in Guildford, before joining Portsmouth FC where he came through the ranks from schoolboy to full-time professional. After an initial loan spell he joined Dorchester Town before spells at Walton Casuals and Farnborough Town. Whilst at Farnborough Bradshaw won the Supporters Player of the Season award in 2012. Bradshaw has a reputation for saving penalties and his series of penalty saves in the final weeks of the season were widely regarded as saving Farnborough from relegation. After a brief spell at Westfield, he has spent the last two seasons at Camberley Town where he played a major role in that club’s success. As well as his goalkeeping heroics, Bradshaw has now established a reputation as a goal scoring goalkeeper having twice scored from his own half in the last two seasons!
City will be participating in the Battle of the Somme commemorative event at Surrey Sports Park on Friday 1 July, and the club’s first pre-season friendly is the following day against Walton Casuals on the 3G at Elmbridge Sports Centre. It had been hoped to announce the full pre-season programme by now, but the earlier than expected arrangement of the FA Cup Extra-Preliminary round on Saturday 6 August has caused all Step Five leagues problems with their league start dates, and by extension most clubs, including ourselves, are having to juggle some of the friendly dates.
