Shrivenham boss John Fisher dislikes pre-season so much that he has taken the ingenious approach of booking a holiday to avoid it.

The Rec outfit begin training next week but Fisher has lined up a fortnight in Cyprus slap-bang in July to he can soak up the rays before the campaign starts in earnest, which he freely admits is double standards given that he is no fan of players doing exactly the same thing.

“You don’t get a lot out of pre-season friendlies, they are a waste of time,” said Fisher.

“The players you’ve got aren’t under contract and half of them end up going away on holiday.

“You can go into a friendly with six of your players from your starting line-up unavailable and it becomes a bit of a nightmare really.

“It’s possible to get to the first game of the season and your first team haven’t played together, but you have to play the friendlies because that’s the only way to get fit.”

Some local football managers are so committed that they will take a holiday in June specifically to avoid a clash with the start of pre-season, but this is a mindset Fisher has little time for.

“July is the best time of the year to go to Cyprus as I want to go there when it’s hot,” he added.

“I don’t want to go to Cyprus in June and I’m going to miss most of pre-season so I’ve timed it well.

“Not being disrespectful to other managers and if they want to go away in June then fair play to them, but if your life is going to be dictated by the Hellenic League then you don’t just need to be seriously looking at yourself, you need to be checking in at The Priory.”

Meanwhile, Fisher admitted he had been frustrated in his attempts to launch a triple raid on demoted Wootton Bassett, having had his approach rebuffed by the players in question.

But he is still upbeat that he will begin the season with a competitive squad that will improve on last season’s lowly Hellenic Premier showing.

“I tried to grab a few of them (Bassett players) but I think they thought they were going to go straight back up,” explained Fisher.

“So fair play to them if they think they are going to, I’ve got no problem with that, it’s their life not mine. It’s not my problem they’ve got no ambition, is it?

“I think we’ll keep most of the squad we had last year but we need a few others, but we won’t know what we’ve got until two or three training sessions in.

“Towards the end of last season we had quite a good squad but we do need a few more, so hopefully we’ll get that.”

Shrivenham play their first pre-season friendly on July 16 when they host Oxfordshire side Clanfield.