It seems an age ago that we celebrated winning the league title, although the season only finally came to an end last weekend with a third successive defeat, this time away at Gosport Borough, a result that helped secure their play-off spot, although it was to no avail in the end as they lost out away at Salisbury in the play-off semi-final in midweek. In the other semi-final AFC Totton beat Bracknell Town (strangely in front of their lowest crowd of the season!), setting up a final against Salisbury on Monday – good luck to both sides in their quest to join us in National League South next season (I still like saying that).
While we were off on our travels to Gosport our women’s team were preparing for the visit of 2nd place Norwich City Women FC. After heavy overnight rain, and in order to get the game played before the final FA Women’s National League weekend, the game was moved to Chiltern Hills Academy in Chesham. Norwich were comfortable winners on the day (although well done to Becky Fraser for a terrific goal for Chesham) and it looks like we’ll finish the season in 9th place in the league. One more game to go as the team travel to Cambridge United this Sunday. The women’s development squad have 2 more games to play in the Southern Region Women’s Football League Division 1 North and it looks like Chesham will finish in the top half of the table. Also wishing the U11 and U16 girls well as both teams play in League Cup Finals this weekend. Bring home the trophy girls!
You will hopefully have seen a separate note yesterday outlining a request for volunteers with help around the ground as we prepare for the forthcoming Comedy match. I did not want to fill these notes with requests for help, and equally I did not want these requests for help to get lost in all the other news. Please, if you can help, do get in touch. I mentioned in yesterday’s message that we are installing two new emergency exit gates that go directly into the directors and officials car park, and after having the ground professionally ground graded yesterday this new exit will give us a potential ground capacity of 5,800. Not that we will be using that straight away, but it is nice to know it is there!
I am delighted to say that within our awards accumulation we have also been crowned the Southern League ‘Champion of Champions’ by having a higher Points Per Game ratio than the Southern League Premier Central winners, Needham Market. This means we will be awarded with the prestigious Southern League shield which, if any of you have ever seen pictures, is absolutely massive and will see our names put alongside some great Southern League winner of the past, including some current Premier League sides.
I have a list of thankyous for this season that is far too long to share in these notes and I am bound to leave someone out, but you know who you are and I hope you know how highly valued your help is. I would however like to give a special mention to Simon Newbury who does all our football admin with the league and FA throughout the season. You might not be aware but dealing with the admin is a minefield with potential fines around every corner. Most clubs pick up administrative fines for what can be very small discretions or oversights, sometimes these fines can be quite hefty. However for the second year running we have gone a season without picking up a single fine – honestly, that is almost as big an achievement as what we did on the pitch year!
Thank you also to James Newbury who at the start of the season picked up managing attendances, gate receipts and reporting the finances of this. With the crowds we had towards the end of the season this became a much bigger job than either of us expected, but I am really pleased it did and my thanks go out to James. As it does to all of our volunteers – turnstile operators, programme sellers, IT and social media support, stewards, running the shops…as I say, the list is endless.
It would be wrong of me to not also thank my fellow Board members. It is not always smooth sailing behind the scenes. There are challenges to face and some tough decisions to be made, but we have faced them all head on and I firmly believe we have one of the strongest boards we have had for a long time now.
Our attention now turns to next season. Plenty to do, but I am delighted to say that later today we will be launching our new home and away shirts for the 2024/25 season – I think you will like them. I hope you do. Everyone that has seen them up to now is delighted. So if you are reading this before 6pm on Friday night then keep an eye on social media later for the launch, if you are reading this later in the day – go search your feeds now, the kits are out there!
If you have not yet bought your tickets for next weekend’s comedy match, get yourself over to the website now as they are selling fast. There are a lot of people working very hard to make this a special event, and it promises to be even bigger and better than last year’s triumph with two great choices of food from Billy’s Burger and a pizza van, three bars around the terraces with lots of humour on and off the pitch. We also have some charity fundraising going on with six signed matchballs from all the players on the day up for raffle, plus possibly a few surprise names on there as well. We will also have the ‘Champion of Champions’ shield on display providing excellent photo opportunities.
On sale on the day we will have the new shirts, hoodies, beanies, bucket hats and special matchday scarves – so don’t forget to bring your bank or credit card so you can go home with more than just the big smiles that the day will bring. You can also order your purchases in advance on the website to collect at any time, including on the day of the Comedy match.
After the match is over if some people can help clear the terraces around them that would be fantastic as we have another fundraising day on the Sunday in aid of the Hospice of St Francis with a junior 6-a-side football tournament for under 7’s as a Mad Hatter Tea Party event. The clubhouse will be open if you want to come along and be a part of another fun community day.
Although football on the pitch is finishing for the season, we will be opening the clubhouse for the Euros during the summer, keep an eye out for more details of these openings. I will continue to write these weekly notes over the summer, keeping you up to date with activities and remember, if you have some spare time and would like to volunteer with helping out over the summer, there always things that need doing, please feel free to contact me directly.
Thank you for your support.
Peter Brown, Chairman
