Less than a week now until our first pre-season friendly away at Uxbridge next Tuesday evening and then we host National League side Wealdstone at The Meadow next Saturday with a 1.00pm kick-off, a reminder that season ticket holders get free access to all four of our pre-season matches this summer so, if you haven’t purchased yours yet, you know what to do! And if you have purchased yours already then we hope these will be available for collection at the Wealdstone game (if not, we will have a list to allow the season ticket holders the free entry that comes with the ticket).
The squad has continued to train hard and I am confident that we will hit the ground running when the league season starts in August. I am also aware of talk on social media and online newspapers about us being associated with another new signing, however there is a right way for us to do things out of respect to all parties and when the time is right we will make the relevant announcement. There are certain protocols to follow and once everything is confirmed you will be the first to know. I appreciate that supporters would like, expect even, to hear the news from us first, but we can only do that when the time is right.
Next week, Wednesday AT 1pm, also sees the release of the league fixtures, always a moment to look forward to and start the planning, but with even more excitement this year as we enter a new league and many new opponents, and some that we have not met for many years. I am sure all the supporters are eagerly awaiting this and I hope they pan out kindly for you to have some good away days out. Your away support last year was magnificent and undoubtedly helped us to achieve our promotion goal, it would be fantastic if we could maintain that for the season ahead – and your home support of course!
The Meadow is starting to look fantastic and I would like to thank everyone that has worked hard over the summer on this, including Craig our groundsman who once again has done a superb job and enabled us to play home pre-season friendlies much earlier than we normally would. We are still looking to have a white line painting party at the club this Saturday and Sunday ahead of the friendlies. Please do come along with your brushes if you are available.
Whilst we continue to maintain and improve our home ground, the ambition remains to secure the long term sustainability of the club at a new ground that will enable us to involve so much more of the community, host more of our youth teams and our entire ladies and girls section at our own ground and generate new income streams to continue the success of the One Club ethos without having to have Directors and shareholders on standby with their wallets. This week I picked up the final report for us to send to the council for our prospective planning application. Once we have the response we will be holding various meetings with your supporters and sponsors to discuss full details of what we are proposing to achieve. We are getting closer, very slowly, so bear with us whilst we continue to proceed with the project for not just our club, but an asset for the town.
This week we were delighted to welcome the local fire brigade to The Meadow once again, spending 40 minutes running training drills on the pitch, and adding a much needed 35,000 litres of water onto the pitch. These people do a magnificent job protecting us around the town, particularly now when we seem to be having an issue with arson attacks on local buildings. The latest was an attempt on the town’s brilliant food bank, which could have been catastrophic for all the people that rely on this community facility. Thankfully the fire was spotted by a local council employee who called 999 and the fire was dealt with. Please, let’s look after each other as a community, and if you do see any wrongdoings going on, don’t stay quiet, report it to the relevant authorities.
Elsewhere this week I had a very humbling meeting with a local charity in Amersham that I was not previously aware of, the MPS Society. These wonderful people support the welfare of children with illnesses that condemns them to a limited life expectancy. Imagine receiving a diagnosis so rare that even your doctor is unfamiliar with it. This is the reality for those with MPS, Fabry, or related lysosomal storage diseases. When you or your child is diagnosed with one of the 27 conditions they cover, you not only need information and specialist support but also a community that understands.
I want us as a club to help raise awareness on this local charity because I was not aware of it previously, and I am sure many others are not. During the coming season we will be holding bucket collections for the organisation and offering free monthly adverts in our matchday programme. Please keep an eye out for more details on this, we will announce in advance which games this will be at so you can bring along some extra change (or notes) in your pocket on that day.
Sticking with the community, I enjoyed a gorgeous meal at the Rose Spice in the High Street this week, and I strongly recommend that you do to, especially season ticket holders as the owners there are generously giving Chesham United season ticket holders a 20% discount. A great example of how we can work in partnership with other businesses in and around the town. Where we live we are fortunate to have many fantastic places to eat and drink and it is our vision to continue down this path of using our success on the field to raise the awareness of the club, and through that the town, to make Chesham a vibrant and thriving social and business community. That may sound overly idyllic, but we are seeing the signs that it can be done, and I am excited about what still lays ahead for us as more of a community football club.
Once again thank you for your generous support, and a quick reminder that we are running steward training by a regulated trainer that will help us to be even more professional in our stewarding on matchdays, on three successive Wednesday, 7.30 – 9.00pm, starting on 17th July. We do still need more volunteers to get involved with this, please, If you are interested in being a part of our stewarding team, get in touch with me at chairman@cheshamunited.co.uk.
Thank you for your support
Peter Brown, Chairman
