Bears head coach Rich Squires has revealed his matchday squad for this weekend’s game at home to London Skolars - the first home match since February 2020 to be played in front of a crowd.

Sunday will give Bears chance their first chance of the new season to see the squad in person, and it will be a squad full of confidence after last week’s excellent 36-10 win away at the West Wales Raiders.

Squires told our official podcast, Bear Necessities, how he’s feeling ahead of the game.

He said: '“We’ve shown that when we do play positively we get a good reaction from the boys - there are smiles on their faces this year and there’s a lot of self belief running throughout the full squad, and they’re knitting really well together as a group.

“We’re positive going into this week, we’ve just got to keep doing the little things - Skolars are a tough team - you go back a year and a half and after seven or eight games they were top of the league. But if we play anything like we have done in the first two games I’ll be very confident going into it.”

This was echoed by player/coach Dave Scott on our podcast, calling the game a ‘must-win’ for the Bears.

He said: “We can’t just turn up and expect to win. We have to turn up with the correct attitude, apply ourselves in the right way, and make sure we bring our A-game - otherwise we’re going to get turned over.

“In preseason we said we wanted to win at least two of the first three games. We didn’t achieve that against Barrow so it’s a must-win game this weekend against Skolars.”

A Bears win this weekend would mark a solid start to the new Betfred League 1 season and be the perfect gift for returning fans - three of whom were special guests on our podcast this week to explain exactly what getting back to the Butts means to them.

Head coach Squires is also excited to welcome fans back.

He said: “It’s good. I think it’ll be another kicking point for our boys to have those people around. It’s not thousands and thousand, but the ones who come down are really vocal and do get behind the boys.

“I looking forward to the fans seeing the group we’ve put together this year; we’ve got a real hard-working bunch but a real comical side off the pitch. It’s a good bunch that works hard for each other on and off the field, and I’m looking forward for the fans to get to see that, seeing the hard work they’ve put in and, hopefully, seeing it come off on Sunday.”

Tickets for Sunday’s game must be purchased in advance. Full details here.

Come on Bears!

21 Man Squad for the match

Stefanos Bastos

Sam Bowring

Will Budd

Jed Charlton

Dan Coates

Chris Cullimore

Jack Dawson

Josh Dunne

Darius Hamilton

Nathan Hill

Brad Ho

Harry Kaufman

Ryan Langton

Reece rance

Peter Ryan

Dave Scott

Keiran Sherratt

Elliot Townsend

AJ Towse

Liam Welham

Matty Welham

Skolars preview: the fans are coming back to the Butts!