JOHN Sussex cannot wait for his first full season in charge of Basildon United to get underway tomorrow.

The Bees’ Isthmian North campaign will kick-off at Bury Town.

And Sussex admits he is expecting a tough battle at Ram Meadow.

“I’m looking forward to my first full season as the manager of Basildon,” said Sussex, who moved into the hotseat in March.

“Bury are a very difficult side to play against and they were not beaten many times at home last season.

“People will see it as a home banker, but we’re going there looking to get our campaign off to a positive start.

“It’s also a bit more difficult for us to prepare because we are not familiar with all of their players.

“It would have been nicer to play a more local team, who we know very well, in the first game of the season.

“But we have had Bury watched and we have been working on a gameplan.”

Basildon scored just 37 goals - the lowest amount in the Isthmian North - during their first campaign following promotion from the Essex Senior League.

Sussex has responded by making a number of eye-catching summer signings, with the likes of Adam Vyse and Tom Anderson arriving.

And Sussex, who started last term on the backroom staff at Basildon, feels the Bees will be more threatening when going forward this season.

“One of the big problems when I took over as manager was that we were struggling to score goals,” added Sussex.

“We have tried to eradicate that by signing nine attacking players in the summer and they have all scored during pre-season.

“All in all, we have scored more than 20 goals in pre-season, so we have more threats going forward.

“I feel happy with our recruitment during the summer but talk in cheap.

“We need to prove that we have improved when it really matters on the pitch.”

Sussex would prefer to be going into tomorrow’s clash with a final pre-season win at Three Bridges.

The Bees’ chief admitted: “We are in a good place and I’m hoping that we will surprise a couple of people this season.

“We have had a good pre-season and only lost one game.

“That defeat came at Takeley and we would have been going into the new campaign with another win, rather than a 1-1 draw, under our belts were we not a bit unfortunate at Three Bridges.

“Ayo Odukoya was running through on goal and was about to tap the ball into the net when the goalkeeper took him out.

“The goalkeeper was sent off but, with it being a friendly, we allowed them to put their substitute goalkeeper on and keep 11 men on the pitch.

“Obviously that would not have been the case in a competitive fixture and we would have played against 10 men for more than half of the match.

“We also had a good penalty shout and hit the woodwork so, on any other day, I’m sure we would have won and gone into the season with even more confidence.”