Last updated at 14:23, Friday, 06 July 2012

Italian defender Alessio Bugno is hoping to break into English football with Carlisle United after joining the Cumbrians on trial.

Alessio Bugno

Bugno, whose father is former Tour de France runner-up and two-time world road racing champion Gianni Bugno, has linked up with United for pre-season training.

The 22-year-old was accompanied at United’s training ground by his agent, who masterminded his try-out with the Blues.

Boss Greg Abbott will be hoping he has unearthed another future star after the success of Francois Zoko, who arrived at Brunton Park on a pre-season trial two years ago.

Huddersfield defender or midfielder Harrison Blakey – son of former England and Yorkshire wicket-keeper Richard Blakey – Cardiff City left-back Jonathan Meades and highly-rated Darlington striker Dale Hopson are also hoping to win deals with the club after they were among five trialists who joined in the first day of pre-season training with the United first-team squad yesterday.

Workington Reds goalkeeper Aaron Taylor was also there to try to impress enough to win a chance in the professional game.

Abbott will assess all five in training and is also preparing for the arrival of a further two trialists in coming weeks. Bugno, 22, has arrived in Cumbria after parting company with Monza.

Hopson burst into the Darlington first team with an impressive display when he scored one goal and set up two in a 3-1 win over Ebbsfleet United last season.

The 19-year-old striker was previously at the Middlesbrough academy.

Blakey is well known to Abbott as the 19-year-old came through the Leeds United academy before joining Huddersfield, where he played for their Under-18 team.

Meades, 19, spent three months playing for FK Moss in Norway during his time at Cardiff, but was unable to break into the Bluebirds’ first team.

New signings Mike Edwards and Danny Cadamarteri met their team-mates for the first time following their arrival last month. Abbott still hopes to add to his squad and is involved in a four-club fight for a player with whom he held talks at a secret location this week.

He said: “It went really well but he has talked to three other clubs so we will see how those talks go, He’s due to finish those talks tomorrow and he’s hoping to be training with someone on Monday.

"If he’s not here Monday, he’s probably going to be somewhere else, but we are hopeful that he may opt to come here and we will continue to pursue that over the weekend. We’ve got five players in on trial this week and probably another two in next week and there are players being thrown at us by the minute.”

First published at 14:08, Friday, 06 July 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk