WAYNE Mew knew the magnitude of the task ahead when he took over as Totton & Eling boss in mid-June.

Building a squad virtually from scratch would always be fraught with difficulty, but what he hadn’t banked on was being overwhelmed with fixtures while his new faces were bedding in.

Tomorrow’s Sydenhams Premier trip to Verwood Town will be the Millers’ tenth league game of the season on top of FA Cup, FA Vase and Hampshire Senior Cup ties.

“Considering we didn’t even play on the first Saturday, that’s a lot of games,” said Mew. “By tomorrow we’ll have played a quarter of our league fixtures.

“We started the season with a squad just thrown together and every game so far we’ve brought in new faces trying to improve it.

“But the main problem is the ridiculous fixture list.

“This has been our first free midweek but we’ve had four players not train because they need to recover from knocks.

“They’re all getting strains and pulled muscles but, because of all the games, they don’t get the opportunity to rest up.

“The guys who organise the fixtures don’t give a lot of thought to this, they just worry about the season not over-running.

“We spent all July trying to make sure we had enough players and only had two pre-season games, but since the season started on the Tuesday (August 5), we haven’t stopped.”

The rock-bottom Millers have yet to bank a league point in nine attempts, but there is hope on the horizon.

Adam Lowther has returned from Moneyfields and fellow midfielder Matt Monk is back after a month out with ankle problems.

James Embree, who played left-back for Mew at Romsey Town, has been reunited with his old boss, while brothers Lee and Conor Thorne are back from AFC Totton.

Mew can only keep his fingers crossed that they all decide to stay. Already he has used 35 players and the season is not yet two months old.

“I’ve got Paul Doswell’s ‘revolving door’ from Eastleigh!” joked the former Spitfires youth/reserve boss.

“Quite a few players have joined and then gone again. Aaron Blaxall went back to Fleet, Byron Gharibian’s had work commitments, Jamie Feasey’s gone and we signed goalkeeper Matt Fredericks but he decided he wanted a break after six games,” he explained.

T&E lodged notice of approach for Brockenhurst ’keeper Nathan Goodger, who subsequently joined them, but defender Richie Hayter had to don the gloves in the interim.

“Steve Riley at AFC Totton has been really helpful and we’re hoping to get a relationship going with them - plus we’re trying to link with the T&E youth side who’ve got some good under-18s coming through,” said Mew.

“But the club itself needs building from the bottom again. There’s hardly anyone on the committee.”