SWINDON Town fans helped get the County Ground up to scratch ahead of the club's first friendly this weekend.

Around 20 supporters answered an SOS on social media and cleaned the seats of the Arkell's Stand yesterday as Town play catch-up after a turbulent summer.

New owner Clem Morfuni completed his takeover last week and Town play Peterborough in their first home fixutre of the new era on Saturday. The 2021/22 League Two season starts seven days later.

Neil Bradford was one of the volunteers who turned up yesterday after speaking to new head coach Ben Garner and Australian owner Morfuni as Town lost 1-0 to Weymouth at the weekend.

He said: "Ben actually came to speak to me once he saw I was here, he remembered me, I had a nice five-minute conversation with him and he made sure we had been looked after today.

“For Clem, if he’s willing to travel across the planet to remove our old chairman then the least we can do is offer a bit of our services to show the love and support we have for the club.

“Even if it’s just cleaning a few seats, everything helps.

“Everyone at the club feels approachable now, it feels like a community, long may that continue.”

For Neil, it was a memorable day back at the County Ground.

He said: “It’s just brilliant being here, it’s my first time being here since January last year.

“It’s nice to come and look at the old place again, it’s still standing. We’ve just had to clean it up and get it ready for the new season as best we can.”

Debbie Bunce helped out with her son Ty and was feeling optimistic ahead of the new season.

She said: “Last week it felt like the atmosphere of when we won the league.

“Everyone was buzzing now that Clem’s come in and we can now draw a line under what’s happened before and just move forward.

“To be coming here cleaning seats in the sun getting ready here for the new season, it’s amazing.

“It’s not something we’d normally do, but it’s just something to help the club out.”

Ty said: “If we can help out, we can help out, it’s nice to be here.

“There used to be such a divide, especially on Twitter, between some of the younger and older fans, now it’s just a big group of optimistic people buzzing to push on.

Yvonne Shaw said: “It’s important to do our bit to get the club back on our feet.

“It’s back to the way it should be, it’s a happy place now.”

Fans are also expected to turn up today and tomorrow to continue the clean-up operation.