IAN Herring will be forced to watch Monday night's Wiltshire Premier Shield final against former club Swindon Town from the sidelines, knowing it could well bring back a flood of memories.

The Chippenham Town midfielder was released by the Nationwide Division Two club in December having spent three years at the County Ground and is gutted he won't be able to play a part on Monday.

A first round appearance in the competition for Swindon has led to him being cup-tied but as he prepares to watch some of his old team-mates in action he is focusing his attention on helping his new club in their bid for promotion.

Chippenham travel to Hednesford tomorrow before matches at home to Moor Green and away to Hinckley on the last day of the season and Herring, who has spent the last couple of matches on the substitutes' bench, is desperate to win back his place.

Herring, 20, said: "It is obviously very disappointing I won't be able to play against Swindon but the league is the most important thing.

"I am not sure what has happened to me over the last couple of weeks to be honest. I hadn't missed a game since I joined in January but now I have been left out for two matches.

"Watching Monday's 6-1 hammering at Dorchester was very disappointing. I thought they wanted it more than us in every area of the pitch.

"We didn't compete and the result shows that but after that I would hope I might get a chance back in the starting line up."

Herring was at Swindon since leaving school at 16 and after getting used to spending every day playing football he admits he has found life at Hardenhuish difficult.

He said: "Getting released by Swindon hit me harder than I thought it had at first. First of all I was training with them every day still and I didn't notice anything different.

"Playing at Chippenham is totally different to how it was at the County Ground. Everything about it is different.

"At Swindon we were wrapped up in cotton wool because everything was done for you. Then to come down here it is a bit of a culture shock.

"We only train twice, compared to every day, and the pitches we play on sometimes make it hard to get the ball down and play it around."

Herring made a few league appearances for Swindon, including their 2-1 defeat at promotion rivals Bristol City but he never really made the breakthrough.

Most of his football has been spent in the youth ranks and he feels this could be explain some of his below par performances at Hardenhuish.

He said: "This is my first real experience of men's football and it is hard. Although I played a bit at Swindon it was never that much whereas before last week I had played 16 games in a row.

"It has been tough but I now need to get my head right, forget about what happened at Swindon, regain my place in the team and then eventually get back into league football."

The 6-1 defeat to Dorchester has left Chippenham probably needing six points out of their last three games to reach the play-offs but Herring is confident it can still be done.

He said: "It is still all there to play for without a doubt. We have to put that result behind us and get as many points as we can.

"If we manage to do that then you never know. It depends on how we react to the 6-1.

"Some players would get their heads down but I believe we have the players here who can lift themselves again."