After five weeks of friendlies, rounded off with Tuesday’s defeat of a Tottenham Hotspur XI, Sutton begin the Ryman League campaign on Saturday when they entertain Margate, who looked set to lose their Premier Division status at the end of last season after finishing 19^th, but were reprieved by the misfortunes of others. Last season the Kent side made U’s fight all the way for the points in the corresponding fixture, holding out for 88 minutes until the sending-off of defender Liam Harwood, after which U’s scored twice, but they did reverse the scoreline in April at Hartsdown Park, a ground U’s will visit next month in the 1^st qualifying round of the FA Cup. Their pre-season schedule saw them unbeaten in four games until a defeat at Chatham last week, with their squad including Jack Haverson, who had a spell on loan at Sutton two seasons ago. For Sutton, James Hawes is definitely ruled out with the ankle injury he sustained at Metropolitan Police while Danny Phillips is doubtful after missing training through illness on Thursday and Laurent Hamici is not due to return from training with the Algerian squad until after the weekend, but Alan Bray and Bradley Woods-Garness both came through Tuesday’s game with no ill effects and will be in the squad. Paul Doswell says that everyone is looking forward to the start of the competitive campaign. ‘’The players and coaching staff can’t wait – we had a good training session on Thursday then all went out for a meal afterwards, and there’s a really good atmosphere about the place.’’ Tuesday’s win against Tottenham also boosted morale. ‘’I’ve said all along that people shouldn’t read too much in to pre-season results as we use the games in conjunction with the training sessions and make sure we keep a record of how much everyone has done, so the results don’t mean much, but I thought our second half performance, against a decent Spurs side, was the best we’ve played for a long time and has set us up nicely.’’