MALDON and Tiptree will travel to play Haverhill Rovers in the FA Cup first qualifying round.

The Jammers progressed to the tie - which will take place next Tuesday (September 22) after beating Hertford Town 1-0 in the extra preliminary round.

Ten new signings made their first appearance for Maldon, who produced a gutsy performance.

They scored their winner on the hour through debutant Aaron William-Bushell, following a superb assist from Sam Coombes.

Maldon begin their Isthmian League division north campaign on Saturday when they travel to play Soham Town Rangers.

Wayne Brown's side will be hoping to emulate their achievements of last season, where they were the runaway leaders and looked odds on for promotion prior to the campaign being prematurely curtailed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Boss Brown has been busy assembling a new squad over recent weeks and says it will take time for them to fully gel.

He said: "We've had to recruit to the best of our ability, with the budget we've got.

"We've put together a side that is in conjunction with the way that Maldon play.

"There's no point bringing in players who are just spoilers and lump it - we need to play football.

“Building a squad together that can go and compete and achieve in leagues doesn’t happen overnight.

“We did that two years into the job but it took us 18 months to get that squad together, a squad that was really good not just on the pitch but also off the pitch.

“There was very good team morale and they were really good, high quality players.

“For all of that work put in and building a squad to win leagues all seems to have disappeared and a lot of it is down to the decision the league made to null and void the league.

“They are good individuals, they’re in demand and they’ll get offered a lot of money to go and play in our league and in the leagues above.

“We’re not in a position to compete with the finances that other teams are throwing around at the moment and we certainly can’t offer the level we’d have been able to, had we got promoted.

“We’d have been a level up had we got promoted and I’m sure we’d have kept these lads and the group together and gone again."