A NUMBER of county footballers will be aiming to once again impress Hereford FC manager Pete Beadle tonight (Thursday).

Sam Pearson, who excelled up front for Pegasus Juniors for the latter part of last season, midfielder Adam Newbury, who has played for Pegasus and Westfields, and Dale Hodge, who starred as a playmaker for Kington Town, were just some of the players who trained at Victoria Park on Tuesday night.

They were part of a 20-strong group who met up for the first time on Tuesday, with the second training session taking place at Hartpury College in Gloucestershire tonight.

Other players joining the seven who have already signed for Hereford included Callum Craddock, Nathan Hughes and Will Haines.

"There are a good catchment of players that live reasonably local and hopefully they will keep progressing," said Beadle.

"Ben Miller was in as was Jamie Gregory, who was in the youth team last year, who doesn't live locally, but is known to Hereford.

"There are plenty more out there and they are all done great.

"We've only seen them for one session, but we will get Thursday and Saturday out of the way and probably look at the game at Malvern before training on the Thursday before the FC United game.

"Who knows, may be by then we may have one or two candidates who have shown enough for us to offer terms to them and see where we go."

Beadle says the players come from a varied background.

"A lot of them have done academies and scholarship programmes at league and some have come through university ranks," he said.

"We are looking at a section who are in their early 20's and down to 19-year-olds that are just trying to break into the game."

"We are still waiting on another seven that are due to come up in the next couple of sessions we have and, as pre-season goes along, I'm sure a few will drift away and also a few that will add to the mix."

One player who sustained an injury during Tuesday's session was Patrick Gibbs, who scored 30 goals last season for Lydney.

"He is stepping up a level from where he played last year and I'm sure the training is a little bit different, as well as the playing standards," said Beadle.

"He came in and worked hard but he felt his calf a little bit so will probably rest tonight and hopefully will be ok for Saturday."

Tuesday's session lasted just over two hours, with running drills and ball work taking place.

"We aims and objectives were to meet everybody because they're are quite a few people here who I haven't met before personally and to get the first session underway to see where we are fitness wise and technically with the ball," said Beadle.

"They worked exceptionally well and we only picked up one little niggle which is pretty good for a first day back.

"Overall, I think the players are quite pleased that it's done and out of the way now."

Saturday's session will take place at Leominster Town, with Beadle conscious about using Edgar Street at this stage.

"We want to do a bit work on Saturday with 11 versus 11, especially with the first game coming up on the following Tuesday," said Badle.

"Leominster have kindly allowed us to use their pitch and the kids played over there when I was here before.

"We're trying not to train at Edgar Street because we want to keep the pitch as good as we can and with the lack of water it's been hard to get water on the pitch."

"But I'm sure there will be times when we do train there."