It has been another fantastic week on the pitch with Chesham United, picking up six points from our opening two games of the season with a couple of very impressive performances.
Last weekend saw a highly entertaining game at The Meadow as we outplayed our visitors Hungerford Town for much of the game and came up against a phenomenal goalkeeping performance from the opposition that kept the score down to 2-1. The match looked to have been soured a little in the 12th minute of added on time (yes really!) when our player, Shaquille Hippolyte-Patrick was shown a very harsh red card. Fortunately, after an appeal made this week, that red card ruling has been overturned, and Shaquille will be available for selection this weekend.
That is excellent news because Shaquille was on the scoresheet again on Tuesday night in another fantastic performance, this time coming from a goal behind to win the match 2-1 at Hayes & Yeading United. The character and tactical thinking of our management to change the game made this result extra pleasing, there will not be many teams leaving that ground with three points in the bag.
Tomorrow we are back in action at The Meadow with a 3.00pm kick-off against Plymouth Parkway – please do come along, bring your friends and family and enjoy an afternoon out with us, I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the quality of the football and the whole matchday experience at your local non-league football club. I am also delighted to report that the numbers on the back of the players shirts will be more visible tomorrow as a solid colour rather than white with an outline. Several supporters had pointed out the difficulty in reading the numbers previously, but when I myself as PA announcer last weekend announced the wrong goal scorer for the first goal, I realised everyone was right and it had to be changed! Thank you all for your feedback.
Our visitors tomorrow, Plymouth, will have travelled a long way for the game, let’s turn out in numbers and give them a warm welcome. Up until now we have been lucky with our away games being local, but that changes next Saturday with a trip down to Dorset to play Dorchester. For most away games when we run a coach there will be additional places available to supporters, these will be available at a cost of £20. Please keep an eye on social media and other communications for details on this.
Sales of our replica home and away shirts continue to sell phenomenally well, thanks in no part I know to our shirt sponsor, Taskmaster. These shirts are proving hugely popular, and we are enjoying seeing the photos being shared on social media of the shirts being worn all around the world. It is no secret that selling a large number of the shirts is a key part of the sponsorship arrangement and really important for our overall budget for the season so I would love to see more and more of these shirts appearing on the terraces and around the town. They are available to order online via the club website or they can be purchased on a matchday from our replica shirt shop located within the clubhouse. However, we are looking for another volunteer to step forward and become our replica shirt shop manager – handling sales on matchdays. If you can help out in this role, please do get in touch at chairman@cheshamunited.co.uk.
A number of you have reported the potholes on the drive up to the ground, one in particular looked so deep that you could almost watch the Lionesses game down in Australia through it! I’m pleased to report that our landlords have confirmed that these will be repaired on Wednesday 6th September, until then, please do take care when driving up towards The Meadow.
Thank you as always for your support, and I look forward to seeing you at the game tomorrow.
Peter Brown, Chairman
