ROYALE Cippenham FC boss Paul Jeffries hopes his side will have an impact in the Thames Valley Sunday League this season.

Cippenham reached the Mary Wells Memorial Cup final last year, where they lost 3-1 to the now defunct Alpha Arms Academicals.

They also finished in sixth place in Division Three, a campaign affected by end-of-season midweek matches.

Speaking exclusively to the Observer, Jeffries admits Cippenham should have won the championship last year.

And, with the league constitution still to be confirmed, he is confident his side can compete if awarded promotion.

He said: “We were third the season before and only lost one game so it depends on how you look at it.

“We got to a cup final, so from that point it was a success, but we should’ve pushed on and won the league.

“We’ve managed to retain most of our players and our aim now is to exceed what we done last year.

“If we’re in the same division we want to push on and win it, and another cup final will be good.

“A lot of teams we played in the cups last season were from a higher division, so it wouldn’t matter to us.

“With more consistency we will probably be all right but it’s hard to tell in Sunday morning football.

Jeffries nominated top scorer Matt Day and central defender Carl Dennison as Cippenham’s star players.

But he is concerned over the amount of midweek fixtures his side may have to play at the end of the season.

He commented: “We had 16 league games last year, and good cup runs, so we were playing well into April.

“With the weather, it’s inevitable that you’re going to have games postponed, so I can’t imagine having more to play.

“We were playing Tuesday and Thursday midweek games just to finish the season last year.” Cippenham began their pre-season preparations with a 2-1 defeat to Merrymakers Reserves at Eton Wick on Sunday.

Merrymakers fielded a strong side and, having played two previous matches, looked sharper early on.

Cippenham soon found their stride and started to create chances, but poor finishing meant the scores remained level.

However, they opened the scoring when Jordan Burns flicked on a long ball and James Johnson finished with aplomb.

Johnson could have doubled the advantage moments later but his effort was ruled out for offside.

Jamie Goodall produced a deserved equaliser for Merrymakers with a well taken goal shortly before half-time.

Both sides made changes at the break and the friendly became less fluid as a result with players out of position.

Merrymakers secured the win when Rob Blanchard latched onto a loose ball to score after fine wing play.

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