A week's a long time in League Two

It's been another eventful week in League Two, with Southend United's continuous financial difficulties proving the main talking points. The pre-season fixtures also started this week and it was a good set of results for the League Two teams, well most of them anyway, Gillingham would have something to say about that.

FRIENDLY MATCHES INVOLVING LEAGUE TWO SIDES

Friday

Buxton 1 Macclesfield 3

Eccleshill 0 Bradford City 2

Braintree 2 Gillingham 1

Saturday

Bromley 2 Gillingham 1

Bury 0 Burnley 3

Ilkeston 1 Burton Albion 2

Leamington 0 Cheltenham 0

Ledbury 0 Hereford 2

Long Buckby 0 Northampton 4

Staines Town 1 Lincoln City 2

Weymouth 1 Torquay United 5

Wycombe 3 Yeovil 3

Sunday

Cliftonville 1 Macclesfield 2

Southend are the side who remain in the news after they had their court date during the last seven days. Their placement into administration was put back until August 2^nd but that hasn't stopped them from agreeing pre-contracts with players. Strangely Paul Sturrock has also cancelled the vast majority of their pre-season friendlies.

The daily mail has claimed that the current players at Roots Hall could be set to quit the club. Having not being paid this month, the players can legally walk out of their contract at two weeks notice and the club couldn't do a thing about it. Southend have already suffered an exodus and could realistically end up having no first team players by the end of the week.

Gillingham have also caught the eyes a bit this week by taking former Ajax star Stanley Aborah on trial. The midfielder has played in the Champions League and would be something of a coup for the Kent club. They might need his inspiration after losing both of their friendlies lost both friendlies so far, 2-1 defeats at Braintree and Bromley.

Gillingham are also one of three clubs chasing Aldershot's Marvin Morgan. The Shots have been preparing for the big striker's departure by bringing in Damian Spencer and Manny Panther.

Stockport have been relatively quiet this week but they are set to make an impactful start to next week with the anticipated appointment of Paul Simpson as manager. Simpson left Shrewsbury at the end of the season and has spent time at Stockport's local rivals Rochdale.

One of the stranger stories this week came from Port Vale. Despite people all over England suffering insect bites on a regular basis and not given them a second thought, Lewis Haldane was checked into hospital for precautions. Port Vale may also be signing Chris Brandon, whom it currently on trial at the club.

Rotherham's Ronnie Moore wasn't happy about John Magennis choosing Aberdeen over the Millers. The recently released Cardiff players seemed set for the Don Valley Stadium, but decided to go to the Scottish Premier Division. Moore said it was purely money motivated, as I imagine he thought he about losing Pablo Mills to Crawley.

Bury signed Steven Schumacher during the last seven days and Lenell John-Lewis has managed to somehow convince the Shakers to give him a trial. He was apparently unimpressive in Bury's 3-0 friendly defeat to Burnley.

Phil Jevons signed permanently at Morecambe after his successful loan spell last season, otherwise it's been a quiet week for the Shrimpers.

John Coleman at Accrington has rather unsurprisingly requested the transfer embargo be removed after losing some of his key players from last season. He lost Symes to Bournemouth, failed to get Kee to join permanently from Leicester and lost Kempson to Grimsby.

Hereford's manager Simon Davey has said "I would have been a bit more pleased if my strikers, when they came on, were a bit more ruthless." Hereford also started their friendly with Ledbury Town with 9 of their starting XI being trialists.

Macclesfield's Rooney has gone on trial at Huddersfield. Paul Morgan will also miss the start of the season following an injury that will see him miss the next 6-8 weeks.

Shrewsbury signed David Raven from Carlisle. The former Grimsby defender was once a target for Alan Buckley when he was manager of Lincoln.

Crewe have taken QPR keeper Shane McWeeney on trial. Crewe also have Danny Blanchett, Matt Brown and Jimmy McCarthy on trial.

Torquay have signed Saul Halpin from Plymouth on a three year contract.

Bradford City's Peter Taylor was left fuming after Luke Dean suffered a suspected broken leg after a friendly victory over Eccleshill. Dean was signed on a six month contract and Taylor admitted it was a shame that it appeared he wouldn't get a good chance due to the injury. Matt Tipton and Lee Morris are also on trial at Bradford. They also signed Shane Duff from Cheltenham.

 Burton signed Nathan Stanton from Rochdale. They have also signed James Ellison

The only piece of news coming from Chesterfield was the signing of Craig Davis from Brighton.

Northampton completed the signing of Purcell and it is believed that are going to sign Marcus Hall from Coventry.

So all in all, a relatively quiet week in League Two.