Chesham United Football Club - A FA Charter Standard Community Club
Official Website
Message from Alan Calder
As we approach the end of another remarkable season, I wanted to take the opportunity to publicly invite all supporters, players, management and family from all of the Chesham United teams to our End of Season Celebratory Bash at The Chess Suite on Friday 6th May from 7.00pm onwards.
There will be food, music, a bar and some award presentations. Entry is free, all we ask is that you have a good time!
2010/11 has been the first season with Chesham United Association Football Club being run by supporters through the Chesham United Supporters' Trust. We are committed to securing the long term future of Chesham United and enabling our supporters, and the people of Chesham, to enjoy watching football played at the highest sustainable level. To achieve this we strongly believe that Chesham United must be an active member of our community and must work towards developing football in our area at all levels. I hope you agree that we have made steps towards achieving this over the past 12 months, albeit there remains a long way to go.
We fully support the development of the many Youth and Girls & Ladies teams that play under the Chesham United name and we were delighted to achieve joint FA Community Club status with the Ladies in January. It has also been a pleasure to welcome the youngsters from mini-league down as mascots this year and we hope to be able to offer more opportunities for involvement for all the youth teams over the coming year. We are committed to integrating all sections of our Club to help benefit all the various age group teams - this has been a Supporters' Trust objective since day one, and remains so, though we appreciate that history may make this a lengthy process, it remains something for which we will continue to strive.
The world of football seems to have gone financially mad, even down to our level where clubs are going out of business with five, even six, figure sums owed to HMRC. At Chesham United we are not paying what we cannot afford and we ensure everyone gets paid and all taxes and National Insurance is paid honestly, and on time. Without such business management, the Supporters' Trust could not set about achieving all it's objectives.
With all that going on, I personally believe that 2010/11 has been a massive success for the football club as a whole. Whereas I am not going to pretend to be an expert in the detail of every team under the Chesham United banner, I am keeping a regular eye on all things Chesham United and we have put in place a club management board, people entrusted to take responsibility and make decisions, that is actively looking to bring everyone closer together, which I hope over the next 12 months we will all begin to benefit from even further.
On the field the First XI have excelled following promotion to the higher profile Premier Division of the Southern League, rightly or wrongly this remains our flagship side attracting the most local and national media - history shows that the success or failure of this side has a huge knock on effect for the entire club.
The Youth team have had a tremendously successful season in both league and cups, providing players capable of stepping up to Reserve and First XI squad level and also working with the Chesham United Youth FC set-up to give players a route into the senior side if they wish to progress further.
At the turn of the year we had a management change in the Reserves side which I believe to be one of the most exciting moves of the entire campaign as this now provides the final link in the chain that we want to run through from the mini-league kids on a Sunday morning right through to the semi-professional First XI who are increasingly attracting the attention of Football League scouts.
The challenge for the Supporters' Trust has been both exciting and frightening as we juggle the dream of running the football club we love with the terrifying prospect of managing a company that turns over approximately £250,000. We will make mistakes along the way, but we believe we are trying to do things properly with the restriction of being run purely by volunteers, and our ambition is to share and expand the excitement we are experiencing across all the teams associated with Chesham United Football Club, their management and their families.
I do hope you can join us on Friday 6th May for what I hope to be the first of many joint ventures. Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported our club over the course of the season, everyone should be very proud of what you have achieved.
Alan Calder
CHAIRMAN, CHESHAM UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB
There will be food, music, a bar and some award presentations. Entry is free, all we ask is that you have a good time!
2010/11 has been the first season with Chesham United Association Football Club being run by supporters through the Chesham United Supporters' Trust. We are committed to securing the long term future of Chesham United and enabling our supporters, and the people of Chesham, to enjoy watching football played at the highest sustainable level. To achieve this we strongly believe that Chesham United must be an active member of our community and must work towards developing football in our area at all levels. I hope you agree that we have made steps towards achieving this over the past 12 months, albeit there remains a long way to go.
We fully support the development of the many Youth and Girls & Ladies teams that play under the Chesham United name and we were delighted to achieve joint FA Community Club status with the Ladies in January. It has also been a pleasure to welcome the youngsters from mini-league down as mascots this year and we hope to be able to offer more opportunities for involvement for all the youth teams over the coming year. We are committed to integrating all sections of our Club to help benefit all the various age group teams - this has been a Supporters' Trust objective since day one, and remains so, though we appreciate that history may make this a lengthy process, it remains something for which we will continue to strive.
The world of football seems to have gone financially mad, even down to our level where clubs are going out of business with five, even six, figure sums owed to HMRC. At Chesham United we are not paying what we cannot afford and we ensure everyone gets paid and all taxes and National Insurance is paid honestly, and on time. Without such business management, the Supporters' Trust could not set about achieving all it's objectives.
With all that going on, I personally believe that 2010/11 has been a massive success for the football club as a whole. Whereas I am not going to pretend to be an expert in the detail of every team under the Chesham United banner, I am keeping a regular eye on all things Chesham United and we have put in place a club management board, people entrusted to take responsibility and make decisions, that is actively looking to bring everyone closer together, which I hope over the next 12 months we will all begin to benefit from even further.
On the field the First XI have excelled following promotion to the higher profile Premier Division of the Southern League, rightly or wrongly this remains our flagship side attracting the most local and national media - history shows that the success or failure of this side has a huge knock on effect for the entire club.
The Youth team have had a tremendously successful season in both league and cups, providing players capable of stepping up to Reserve and First XI squad level and also working with the Chesham United Youth FC set-up to give players a route into the senior side if they wish to progress further.
At the turn of the year we had a management change in the Reserves side which I believe to be one of the most exciting moves of the entire campaign as this now provides the final link in the chain that we want to run through from the mini-league kids on a Sunday morning right through to the semi-professional First XI who are increasingly attracting the attention of Football League scouts.
The challenge for the Supporters' Trust has been both exciting and frightening as we juggle the dream of running the football club we love with the terrifying prospect of managing a company that turns over approximately £250,000. We will make mistakes along the way, but we believe we are trying to do things properly with the restriction of being run purely by volunteers, and our ambition is to share and expand the excitement we are experiencing across all the teams associated with Chesham United Football Club, their management and their families.
I do hope you can join us on Friday 6th May for what I hope to be the first of many joint ventures. Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported our club over the course of the season, everyone should be very proud of what you have achieved.
Alan Calder
CHAIRMAN, CHESHAM UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB
