As quickly as it finished back in April, football has reared its head once more for the 2025/26 season.

It’s been a busy summer at Bolitho Park for Plymouth Parkway, with 12 new faces entering the doors at the Theatre of Trees.

Andrew “Rocky” Neal from Truro City was the statement signing from the Yellows and he was shortly followed by, Will Sullivan from Mousehole AFC, Jake Smith from Helston, and Jack Veale from Cardiff Met.

Following their release from the Plymouth Argyle and Exeter City academies, Jensen Ireland and Max Edgecombe, linked up with Parkway and were joined by fellow youngsters Charlie Stevens, Charlie Castlehouse, and Aiden Warne.

There was a whole host of trialists training with Parkway throughout the off season, but the two who stood out were Cruise Nyadzayo and Ferran Simmons, who have committed to the club for the 2025/26 season.

Pre-season bore mixed results for Chris McPhee’s Yellows. An opening draw against Exmouth Town and losses against Saltash Untied and Tavistock might have had some supporters feeling slightly nervous going into the league campaign, but a win over Buckland Athletic and a 1-0 win over National League Truro City last Saturday, is where it all truly clicked into place.

Speaking ahead of the season opener on Saturday, McPhee said:

“I think I speak for the group of players, the staff, and everyone linked with the club, when I say that we’re really looking forward to it. Pre-season is always one of those times where you are just desperate to get going and we understand the importance of using this time in order to get momentum and get to a certain point.

“We’re really happy with the condition the players are in. We’re really happy with how we’ve built some momentum through pre-season and how the players have picked up the ideas around how we want to play.

“The new players have settled the group have done some really big work physically with RS&C coach Charlie, and we’re just starting to see the fruits of their labour in that respect. We feel as though we’ve got a squad of players that are a fitter, stronger, more robust and a little bit sharper over those first couple of yards, which is really key for starting season.

“We feel we’ve improved the squad. We’ve got some young players with some huge potential and right as things stand, the group is very competitive. There’s lots of competition for places throughout the team.

“Apart from Shane (White) and Alex (Rutter), everyone’s fit and strong, and that was probably the only real disappointment of pre-season, from our point of view, is picking up injuries to those key players and but what it has done is it’s given opportunity to other people to get a few more minutes through pre-season and put their put themselves forward to potentially deputize for those guys.

Parkway’s skipper White is currently out with a knee problem but is hopeful to return soon. Rutter on the other hand, suffered an unfortunate Achillies injury early on in pre-season and is set to spend most of the upcoming campaign on the sidelines.

As a result, young keeper Mack Allan has been brought in on loan from AFC Bournemouth, and made a great first impression at Bolitho Park, keeping a clean sheet on his debut.

“We made a loan signing from AFC Bournemouth and he made his debut on Saturday against Truro”, said McPhee.

“He made a really good first impression for everyone who was there and involved, and the boys have taking to him, and he seems to have enjoyed himself as well.”

Allan’s league debut couldn’t come against harder opposition.

Walton & Hersham finished 3^rd last season but missed out on promotion via the playoffs in a penalty shootout to Gloucester City.

Speaking on the tough test awaiting Parkway in Surrey on Saturday, McPhee said: “What we do know is we’re potentially turned up to, if last season’s anything to go by with first and second getting promoted, the best team in the league.

“It’s a great mouth-watering fixture to head up to potentially the best team from last season and test ourselves, see how far we’ve come, have a look at how resilient the players can be.

“One of the things we’ve found throughout pre-season is we’ve got a real grit and determination throughout to score. We’ve got players that have been with us a little bit longer, along with the experienced players, and we’ve started to build a real mentality.

“We’re going to go and play a team that want to play progressive football, want to play out from the back and try and dominate possession, and we will be happy for them to do that.

“We’ve done a little bit of preparation around how that might look for us and how we might utilize the way they play to help us.

“Starting the season on a positive note, getting some points on some early points on the board, and starting to set into our stride, is definitely on top of our priority list.”