MANAGERLESS Newport County will begin interviewing perspective candidates to succeed John Cornforth next week with the aim of having a new man appointed before October 8.

County, who face a vital clash at Southern Premier League outfit Chippenham Town tomorrow in the second FA Cup qualifying round, will again be in FA Cup action on October 8 if they survive the Chippenham tie.

The aim of the County board is to have the new man in position as quickly as possible, ideally in time for any future games in the FA Cup, a huge priority because of the additional revenue that it brings in.

Board member Colin Everett explained: "Hopefully we will be able to announce an appointment before October 8, which we all hope will be our next FA Cup match.

"The new manager is obviously going to need time to settle in and to get to know the players, so we certainly would like to give him time to do that before taking charge of a game.

"It is no secret at all that we as a club underachieved in the cup competitions last season and it would be a large boost, for both on and off the field reasons, if we could improve on that this year."

Everett has also outlined what attributes the board will be looking for in deciding who should step into the hot seat.

"We are looking at a number of potential candidates, all of whom have expressed an interest in the job," he said.

"What we now have to do is decide on who is the best candidate based upon the criteria we are looking for. "The new manager will ideally have non-league experience, a network of contacts at different levels in the game, including Welsh football and will be used to working with a varied budget.

"We are also very keen to bring in someone who places a large emphasis on developing players, be it youth players or players with potential playing at a lower level."

While the board continue to focus on bringing in a new manager, caretaker boss Glyn Jones is preparing the squad for tomorrow's trip to Chippenham, although it still isn't clear whether his influential assistant Jason Bowen will be fit to play.

Bowen has been out with a knee problem since mid-August and is seeing a specialist today to get an assessment on the injury.

He explained: "My appointment today will assess how well the injury has healed.

"If I get the all-clear then I would like to play tomorrow, even if I'm in some pain I will just battle through it, but obviously I will have to take the medical advice."

One player who definitely won't feature for County at Chippenham is striker Nick Harrhy. He has joined ex- County boss Peter Nicholas at Llanelli on a dual registration basis.