Carlisle United made a last minute signing ahead of their League Two opener at Gillingham.
Free agent Ben Williams has been signed on a short-term deal until January.
Williams, 25, was most recently at Cheltenham Town and made 30 appearances in League One last season.
During his two and a half seasons at Whaddon Road, he made 77 appearances and scored three goals.
He had youth spells with Blackburn Rovers and Morecambe before he started his professional career with Barnsley.
He made 41 appearances during his time at Oakwell and was promoted out of League One in the 2018/19 season. He made 25 Championship appearances before making the move to Cheltenham.
Manager Paul Simpson told the official club website: “We’ve hit a bit of a problem this week with Cameron Harper and Taylor Charters both suffering from persistent niggles they’ve had. They both dropped out of training on Tuesday so we were put in a position where we needed to make a signing.
“I didn’t want to imbalance the team by having to play a right footer at left-back, so I’m delighted we’ve been able to get Ben into the building.
“He’s a player with a lot of experience for a 25-year-old and he’s a player we all know about as a group of staff. I’m delighted he’s agreed to join us and we’re all looking forward to working with him over the next few months.
“He’s been training with different clubs during pre-season, so he’s fit. He’s played games and been involved in training. He won’t be at maximum fitness but he’s at a level where we felt we could bring him in, and he’ll go straight into the team today.
“He’s experienced at this level and at higher levels, so I think it’s a good opportunity for us and for him. He’s with us until January so it gives us an opportunity to see what he’s all about. It will work both ways, if we decide not to take it any further because of the other options we’ve got then he’s had the opportunity to put himself in the shop window and play football.
“Credit to him, because we’ve enquired about lots of players over recent weeks and I sometimes get the feeling they don’t actually want to play football. Ben jumped at the opportunity, he loved the thought of it and he wanted to come up and play.”
Ben’s registration was completed in time for him to go straight into today’s matchday squad.
He will wear squad number 20.
