Rangers set to ground-share with Comrades

“We could have remained at Seaview, but Crusaders are also allowing Newington to use their pitch as well and that would have caused us problems, as you can probably imagine, with three teams trying to play home fixtures there,” explained Hughes.

“There would have been complications even when Crusaders were not requiring the ground for home games. We’d have been juggling with Newington as well and it would have needed opposition clubs to agree to switch games and possibly risk forfeiting points if fixtures could not be played – and I don’t think anybody in our division will be doing us any favours.

“However, we are hoping the Irish League can help us by allowing us to play most of our early games away from home and we’d be planning to play Cup games on opposition grounds as well – and then we can play most of our home games in the second half of the season and try to pick up points as we play catch-up.

“Fortunately, the weather has been very good for growing this year, the rain and the sun combining to help in that regard and the pitch at Taylor’s Avenue is coming along great right now.

“Consequently, although you can not be certain that the weather will not go against us as the year goes on, we would be optimistic that we can be playing our first matches on the pitch before Christmas,” assured Hughes, who was happy with a pre-season win over Bohemian FC in Dublin at the weekend.

“They had a blend of first-team players and guys who have not been getting much of the serious action, so it wasn’t their strongest team by any matter of means. But we knew that before we went down.

“We won the game but the result wasn’t important at all, even though it was a good win. It was a decent workout and it will have done us the world of good. We want as many games as we can so we can hit the ground running when the season starts.

“We have a number of games lined up, this Saturday’s match at home to Knockbreda, and others will be added to the list as we go on.

“Meantime, I’m still on the trail of one or two players to complete the squad and get us to where I want us to be,” added the Rangers manager.