The break from football has been short this year with the start of Euro 2024 tonight, unfortunately as a proud Welshman there will be no Wales to cheer on this summer, but plenty of good football to look forward to over the coming weeks I am sure.
Those of you that have watched England matches in The Chess Suite during past tournaments will know what a superb atmosphere there is, and I am delighted to say that Tanya will again be opening the doors for the three England group games, starting this Sunday for the match v Serbia. Doors open at 6.30pm (8.00pm kick-off) with the bar open throughout the game and you are welcome to bring your own food along – or order a takeaway to be delivered to the club. The club will be open again on Thursday, from 4.00pm, for the match v Denmark, with the same arrangements for food. If you are looking for a family friendly venue to watch the games, The Chess Suite is the place to be.
A reminder that the season ticket Early Bird offer ends at midnight Sunday, with the price going up by equivalent to 3 games (£45 for adults) if you miss this deal. I have been delighted by the response with us having already surpassed last season’s season ticket numbers, including almost a third so far that are new season ticket holders. Details are on the website, be sure to order yours by the end of this weekend to get the best deal. If you feel unable to pay out for a season ticket in one lump sum, let us know at press@cheshamunited.co.uk and we can see what is possible. We want everyone to be able to watch their local football team next season.
Work continues to progress around the ground, with our ground-grading expected in late July or early August. A huge thank you to our team of volunteers who have been spending their Monday mornings carrying out important maintenance, refurbishment and repair jobs, I am just sorry the weather has been so wet and miserable for you. On the plus side, the wet weather has saved the club hundreds of pounds by not having to water the pitch!
We will soon be starting the line and fence painting around the ground, and we are in the process of extending the size of the away dressing room to meet the standards required for National League South. Once this is completed we will be looking to arrange a ‘concrete party’ to prepare the groundwork for an additional turnstile entrance and emergency exit that we will be installing. If you can be a part of this, please get in touch and we can discuss timings and availability.
I previously put out a request for anyone that has old strimmers that they no longer use and would like to give to the club, thank you to those that responded, if you could get them down to the club I can arrange for our in-house motor engineer to take a look and get them working. Yes, our majority shareholder, Roger Payne has many talents! These will come into use when we have our working party on Saturday 6th July to clear behind the stand down The Meadow End. For this we will need all strimmers, rakes, saws, branch cutting tools and probably a bag to put all the footballs that we are likely to find that have been lost for years! We will be joined for this work party by volunteers from Aylesbury United, who as you probably know will be ground sharing with us again next season, a big thank you to those volunteers.
Away from The Meadow I had a fantastic time when I was invited to present to the Chesham Society about the football club, what we have achieved and what our plans are for the club. There was a lot of interest and plenty of questions from the attendees, including some great ideas, in what was a thoroughly enjoyable time – it is always good to spread the word about our club and get more of our community engaged with our ambitions.
Club merchandise will continue to be a large factor in our progress, and we continue to improve our logistics for meeting the increasing demand. I can confirm that all orders for the champions shirt left the club yesterday and are with the Royal Mail for delivery. Those that opted to collect can do so tomorrow (Saturday) between 9.00am and midday, or on Sunday when the clubhouse is open for the England match. There are also other orders that have been made for pick-up, some of which have been with us for some time now, these can also be collected at these times.
Thank you as always for your magnificent support, we at the club are still wearing broad smiles everyday as we reflect on what was achieved last season and cannot wait for the new league fixtures to come out next month and start planning our first ever season in National League South. Don’t forget to order your season tickets before midnight on Sunday and join us on the next leg of our journey.
Peter Brown, Chairman
