Northampton Town 0 Stevenage 1: As it happened

Hello and welcome to the start of the new EFL season! It’s miserable at Sixfields, more like November than August, but Cobblers get their campaign up and running this afternoon against Stevenage.

We’ll have updates, team news and more on this page throughout the afternoon so stay tuned...

Lewis Smith, a relative newcomer to the EFL having been promoted last season, will be in charge today

The EFL’s new guidance on stoppage-time could mean we’re in for a late one today. Referees will adopt a new approach to timekeeping this season to ‘ensure a more accurate calculation of addition time’ and also an improvement in the amount of time the ball is in play.

Last night’s EFL opener between Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton saw six minutes added on in the first half and nine in the second.

Cobblers: Burge, Sherring, Guthrie, Monthé, Odimayo, Brough, Sowerby, Leonard, Pinnock, Hoskins, Simpson

Subs: Dadge, McGowan, Koiki, Dyche, Hondermarck, Appéré, Bowie

Shaun McWilliams not in the squad. Will try and find out the reason for that.

McWilliams is missing with the knock that kept him out against MK Dons last weekend. Jon Brady did say in the week that he would recover in time to play today but clearly that’s not the case. We’ll hopefully find out more when we speak to JB post-match. McWilliams one of six players missing - Fox, Hylton, Haynes, Lintott and Magloire the others.

Meanwhile, Patrick Brough, Manny Monthe and Tyreece Simpson all make their Cobblers debuts. Marc Leonard also straight in after rejoining on loan.

Sam Hoskins is making his 400th career appearance today. Nearly 350 of them have come for the Cobblers.