KERNOW Football Alliance manager Darren Gilbert feels he has ‘strength all over the park’ after his squad for this summer’s CONIFA World Football Cup was announced this afternoon.

The 20-man squad to represent Kernow at the tournament, which will take place in Skopje, North Macedonia from May 30 to June 7, was revealed at a press conference at Penryn Campus on Sunday.

Making their debut appearance at a tournament finals since their admission into CONIFA in 2018, Kernow will play three group games and three placement matches during the nine days of competition.

Twenty players from 12 different clubs have been selected in manager Darren Gilbert’s squad, which was announced at a press conference at Penryn Campus, with represented clubs from the South West Peninsula League, Western League, Southern League and National League South, as well as three clubs from Sweden and Australia.

The best-represented club is Gilbert’s Bodmin Town side, who have five players represented. Helston Athletic have four and Plymouth Parkway have two, while Falmouth Town, St Austell, Mousehole, Taunton Town, Bath City, Australian club ECU Joondalup, and Swedish clubs Sandviks IK and Atvidabergs FF have one representative each.

Gilbert and newly appointed coach Andrew Westgarth are also registered as players, while Town goalkeeper Ryan Barnes is set to join the squad should he get the time off work, which would increase the potential player pool to 23.

View the full squad here

“I think we’ve got strength all over the park,” Gilbert said. “I think we were concerned at one stage at right-back, we only had one right-back and were a bit concerned, but we’ve brought somebody else in now to strengthen that position. I think that in every area we’ve got some quality, so we are really, really pleased.”

He added: “There’s a lot of quality there, right from Harry Evans to Wardy, played at Truro and now back at Falmouth, Andy Watkins at Bath City and look at what we’ve got here I just feel that we’ve got a lot of talent and the quality we’ve got in the squad I think we’ll do very well.”

Gilbert spoke of the commitment required from the players, who have had to negotiate time off work and time away from their families at the end of a busy season to be part of the squad this summer.

“For me it’s a big commitment from the players because obviously they’re not being paid to go out here,” he said, “and all the travelling and missing family time, obviously having to take time off work and wages, they’re all missing their day-to-day working money that they should be earning. The commitment from everybody is big.”

LISTEN: Kernow FA captain James Ward reacts to squad announcement

He added: “We’ve had to have a balance because we’ve had to be loyal to the players that have been there and played in games, but there’s obviously players that can’t go so we’ve balanced it out with people that can give us full commitment.

“There’s a lot of schoolteachers here who have had to get time off school, so we’re waiting on another goalkeeper at the moment.

“Westy’s [Westgarth] got a young one as well and he’s committed to go out there. I’ve got three kids, there’s loads of people who have got commitments.”

Another thing Gilbert had to take into consideration is the matter of six matches in just eight days at the end of a long season, which will be a big test on the 20-man squad at the end of a long season with their respective clubs.

“It is big demands, six games in eight days is a big demand,” Gilbert said. “That’s why we’ve gone with experience, taken a lot of youth with us, bringing Westy in with us and Andy [Graham] on the coaching staff. We’re just going to have to balance that so we’re taking a squad of 20, 21, and hopefully we can manage that in games, if we’re up we can move things around and rest players.

“There’s a few older ones that we’ve got to look after, and there’s a few older ones that will want to play every game, but they just simply won’t be able to.”

LISTEN: New Kernow FA coach Andrew Westgarth on 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity'

That demanding tournament schedule will come barely a month after end of one of the most hectic ends to a season ever, with several sides set to play a minimum of 16 games between now and the FA-enforced season-ending date of April 25.

It is for this reason that Kernow are unlikely to be able to fit in a World Cup warm-up friendly before jetting out to Skopje on May 29, meaning the first time the squad all play together could be the first group game on May 30.

“We did turn down offers, there’s a lot of people wanting us to have games, but we said it’s just not fair,” co-founder and chairman Jason Heaton said. “It wouldn’t be right on the clubs; it wouldn’t be right on the players.

“The demands on those players is 50-60 games a season, and some of these have cups runs and everything else, so that added pressure just wouldn’t be right.”

Director of football and co-founder Andrew Bragg added: “If the season ends at the end of April we might try and squeeze in a local friendly before we go just to get some sort of team focus. We might even have the squad of 20 players that we’ve got to play against each other so we can see all 20 players together.”

Reflecting on the journey the organisation has made in its short lifespan, Bragg said: “We’ve been very lucky that everyone at Kernow FA is so hard-working and to get to where we are today is amazing considering two years ago no-one believed this would be possible.

“This is all down to the people here and other people in the room, who have just worked so hard, tirelessly, all volunteers, to get us exactly where we wanted to be where we started out and now it’s the next step on an exciting journey.

“It’s quite frightening as well to be involved, but frightening and exciting all at the same time.”