This week I attended a Ennio Morricone concert celebration, Ennio is rightly considered one of the world’s greatest film composers, and the storyline for this concert was engrossing, generating incredible passion from the audience. In truth the concert hall was nowhere near full, but that did not affect the performance and the energy given by those attending was so intense that it gave the performers a lift as though it was a full-house. The whole scenario very much reminded me of our match against Truro City last weekend.
What a performance. What a day. Somewhere deep down in my bones I was confident that we could beat Truro, despite the fact that nobody else had managed to do that in the league yet this season. And we did just that. In some style. 3-0 up at the interval, what a half. The second-half was more of a battle, our visitors scored one back but the 3-1 win, together with a defeat for table-topping Weston-Super-Mare, has pitched us right up there as title contenders going into the all-important Christmas period.
The second-half of the season promises to be one of the most exciting for many years, which makes it a great time to take advantage of our Half Season Ticket offer – the perfect Christmas present. These tickets are now available to purchase at cheshamunited.co.uk/tickets and will be valid from the Boxing Day game vs Hayes & Yeading. At just £100 for 11 games as an adult, saving you the equivalent of just a little bit under 3 games at the gate price, we think these are great value and a perfect chance to get your tickets sorted for what we hope will be an exciting and prosperous run-in on the field for the club. Concessions tickets are available for £85 and U18s also available at just £20 (less than £2 per game).
On the playing front, Jake Peck has to go back into hospital on 6th December for a further operation as one of the bones broken is not healing properly and needs to be reset. This is a setback for Jake in his aim of returning to the football pitch but needs to be sorted. Meanwhile, following a month of prehab to gain back a range of motion and strength in and around the knee Roddy Collins had a right anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction performed in early November under the care of a specialist in Ireland. Happily, the surgeon thought that the cartilage in the knee was not significantly injured enough to repair. The operation went well without complication. He will now return home to continue to work on his post operative rehabilitation. The first few weeks will consist of getting range of motion and mobility back, coupled with early strengthening around the whole leg. We expected the return to football timeframe to be around the 9-12 months mark. I am sure you will join everyone at the club in wishing both Jake and Roddy all the best in their return to the football field.
This Saturday we travel to Dorchester for what promises to be another tough match (they all seem to be at the moment), with our Dorset hosts sitting in and around the play-off places. Dorchester will be hoping to close the gap on those above them, as always, your away support is hugely appreciated by the players and management, with the England v Senegal match now confirmed as being on Sunday I hope that many of you are able to come along and offer your support.
If you are going to the game, please consider supporting the Dorchester Town ‘Give at the Gate collection’, when our hosts will be running a collection to help support local community food banks. With support from their friends at Tesco Dorchester they will be collecting non-perishable food goods at the turnstiles to donate to local food banks. So please bring an item or two to the game and give at the gate to help support local community food banks if you can.
Thank you as always for your support.
Peter Brown