Not Too Many First Game Blues

Chesham United 0-3 Wycombe Wanderers
Well, I can now say that Chesham United has had its first game since I became Chairman; I guess that was when the realisation of what has been taken on struck home...I was genuinely delighted with the number of well-wishers that came forward to congratulate me, though the night did not go without a few flaws that I think we managed to cover over pretty well!

A gate of 544 was good and will certainly help the finances early season, but equally important was the way the club presented itself. Sometimes as a supporter this is the bit you don't see from the terraces, it's easy to think that people are not doing much and just sipping tea in the Boardroom, but I can assure you that is not always the case! If we take last Tuesday as an example, here's a couple of tales from behind the scenes...

Upon arrival I received a letter of complaint from a supporter, and helper of the club, that, let's say, did not mince it's words with the language and terminology regarding some of what they see to be going on. This obviously puts you in a good mood for the night.

We were then faced with a disgruntled turnstile operator who didn't like the new size of season tickets (record season ticket sales thus far though - thanks to everyone for that) and went around with a face like thunder all night, quite frankly being rude to anyone who approached.

Fortunately we had previously resolved the issue of having no tannoy announcer for the evening... that was until an hour before kick-off. Just after he had been trained on how the whole PA System worked, I saw him dashing across the car park because the referee was now ill and he will instead be running the line! An hour to find a tannoy announcer!

The answer proved to be my Dad - lots of people do loads around the club, but my Dad has become a genuine all round hero. He's down at the club most mornings helping with football secretarial work and the daily running of the club, that morning he had quite literally been cleaning the toilets and now he was to our rescue on the tannoy.

Before he started to announce the teams to the growing crowd I just need to prepare the silver salva that we were going to have presented to the team prior to the match by the President of the Southern League, Keith Allen. So there I am, 7.00pm, standing in the Boardroom by the trophy cabinet looking for the award that I had collected on the club's behalf at the League AGM in Torquay last month. "Dad, have you got the silver salva?"
"The what?" comes the reply.
"The trophy we got for winning the play-offs?"
"I haven't seen that"
"What do you mean? The trophy I gave you when I got back from Torquay?"
"Torquay?" If I hadn't known better I would have thought he was winding me-up, it was like a Monty Python sketch. Twenty minutes to presentation time...

"Torquay, the League AGM, I gave you the silver slava when I got home, you were at my house looking after the kids, I'm sure you had even confirmed it was in the Boardroom... the one we are presenting in 15 minutes..."

After some manic dashing around the box containing the award was located and 10 minutes later seamlessly presented on the pitch to captain Danny Talbot.

The game itself was lost 3-0, some silly goals given away, but for much of the game we played good football and held our own. For us it was still very early into the pre-season preparations and ordinarily we wouldn't have played a match at this stage; for that I appreciate the effort put in by Andy and the players to accommodate the fixture, and also a huge thank you to Wycombe Wanderers for coming along to give us a good run out and the chance to get a good crowd along for a friendly.

Gary Waddock (Wycombe Manager) was very complimentary about the state of the pitch and the performance of our team. I hope they enjoyed their visit to Chesham better than the last time when by all accounts the pitch and the hospitality fell below the standards expected.