Remember, remember…gates open at 6.00pm tonight for what is going to be the perfect evening to spend with friends and family at our Fireworks Extravaganza at The Meadow. With no expense spared we have maintained the budget to put on the length and quality of display that our regular attendees have become accustomed to – a fabulous night in store, do not miss out.
With the weather looking dry and clear, all is set for a big crowd with our outside bar fully functional as well as the clubhouse, hot food available and terracing to ensure that everyone has an excellent view. Please arrive early, enjoy the facilities and help us to manage the crowds up and down the main access points and through the turnstiles. If you have pre-purchased your tickets you will be able to beat the queues, advanced tickets can still be purchased from here, but you can also pay on the gate with either cash or contactless.
Tomorrow (Saturday) we are back at The Meadow, which does mean that we have a huge clean-up operation going on to clear the terraces and to walk the pitch removing any remnants from the night before. Please do come along and help, many hands make light work as they say. We will be meeting at the club at 9.00am, your help is appreciated.
In-between games, maintenance does continue with the latest project being renovation and a deep clean of the toilet bock in the Popular Stand, a big thank you to Ray Trafford and his team for the work that is going on there.
I am also led to believe that the new website is in the final testing stages and I hope to see that launched in the next couple of weeks. It has been a long wait, but when it does arrive it will give us much more flexibility to update news, promote all aspects of the club, support our sponsors and be more engaging with the community.
On the pitch and our last game was less fireworks and more of a damp squib as we exited the FA Trophy on penalties for the second season on the trot, with a success rate that does not make great reading. Prior to that the game itself had exploded into life when the visitors took the lead deep into injury-time, sat in my seat in the main stand my thoughts immediately flipped to the late equaliser Bracknell Town scored in the FA Cup, but there was more drama to come with our late late equaliser – great entertainment, but not great for the heart rate and in this instance not great for the bank balance!
We now know where we stand in terms of prize money into the club’s budget for the season and will make sure that we continue to live within our means, whilst maintaining our challenge for promotion at the end of the season.
We know that a step up to the next level will be a huge challenge requiring greater funding to survive, which is why we continue to build the club off of the pitch, bringing in some fresh faces and new ideas. There are clubs in the Conference South that have shown that it can be done, Chippenham Town, Hemel Hempstead and Hungerford spring to mind, but there are many more examples. Even further up the pyramid you have the likes of Sutton United, Bromley and Borehamwood, all sides that we have beaten in the league not so many years ago. It shows that it can be done, the non-league pyramid works and we should be bold enough to have ambition, without taking risks. And that is what we plan to do.
On Tuesday night we are away to Aylesbury United in the Berks & Bucks Senior Cup, which does of course mean we are back here at The Meadow against our tenants. Please do come along and give the boys your support and enjoy the game under our newly tweaked and even brighter floodlights.
I look forward to seeing many of you tonight, for all my life it has seemed strange that we have celebrated an attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament, but over recent months it has started to become clear! Thank you as always for your support,
Peter Brown