The Chill Sets In

After a couple of weeks without a game due to the weather, it's looking promising that tomorrow's game at Banbury will go ahead. I missed the home defeat v Banbury earlier in the season so am looking forward to hopefully getting revenge tomorrow...and hopefully not spending as long to get out of the car park as it did last time I visited.

A Couple of Wins to Perk Us Up!

I knew a good old grumble on the blog would do the trick, why didn't I do it weeks ago! Two wins since I last posted is just the tonic we needed as we chalked up another 3 points in the league, and a Berks & Bucks Senior Cup win at Aylesbury.

Hednesford Awaits...

Well, I knew it wouldn’t last. It’s almost as though you spend so much time talking about stuff and writing emails to people, I don’t have enough time / will-power to then go and keep the blog up to date. I’m finding it increasingly difficult, unfortunately football is changing, at all levels, and personally I don’t think it is for the best. This week we hear of Liverpool going mad and calling the FA, Fabio Capello and England a bunch of amateurs. The crime? Playing England’s best player for more than 60 minutes????!!!

Time Flies...But is it fun?

As feared and predicted, a fair bit of time has elapsed since my last post. Too busy? Or the natural outcome of four games without a win? I'd like to think it is the former, but I'm sure subconsciously somewhere results have an effect on my ability to find time.

Rambling On Towards The Stones

Saturday's victory over Burnham Ramblers earned the club £3,000 and a home tie against Wealdstone - the side that Aylesbury FC faced in the 4th qualifying round after knocking us out last year. The Stones went on to play Rotherham United in the First Round of the FA Cup -  something that we have only been able to dream of for too many years now.

Big Weekend Ahead

We have a big weekend ahead of us as the FA Cup gets underway with a trip to Burnham Ramblers from the Essex Senior League; a banana skin if ever I have seen one.

Last weekend we had an emphatic 5-0 win over Tiverton Town, a side I always considered as one we must be looking to finish above, but we brushed them aside with ease and held onto our position of second in the table. At the risk of sounding repetitive, amazing credit to the management team.

Six Games In

Wow, you take one weeks holiday (I know, in the football season, shouldn't do it, blah de blah...perhaps I should introduce you to the family?) and next thing you know we are 6 games into the season.

Let’s be honest, none of us anticipated that we would be sitting second in the league, did we? With only the odd exception, results and performances have been fantastic and we are no doubt benefitting from the better pitches and facilities that we are experiencing on our travels.

At the end of last weekend we left the kids at my In-Laws at Skegness last weekend. If you have kids yourself you will understand the hassle of trying to cater for their childcare during the six weeks school holidays. Having done our stint at Weymouth in July, the Calder family holiday part two involved a week in the Norfolk Broads followed by a weekend in Skegness where the kids would be left for another week. The Norfolk Broads are brilliant if you have never been. We stayed in an amazing cottage on a dyke that I had holidayed at as a child several times..the last time being some 27 years ago! If you want details, I’ll let you know, it’s just outside Wroxham...

Sometimes The Journey Really Is Worth It

Distance remaining: 288 miles. Travel time: 5 hours 6 minutes. Warning, traffic congestion en route - do you want to recalculate your route?

This was the welcome I got from my Sat Nav when I started the engine for the journey to Cornwall at 4.26am on Saturday. It was an unearthly hour, but the only way of being sure to beat the holiday traffic, so I hoped.

A Dorset Retreat

I remember once last season watching a Chelsea game on television with my 6-year old son Ben, and David Moyes, the Everton manager, was in the crowd.

"Why is he there?" asked Ben "Everton are not playing". Impressed by his knowledge (though not surprised considering the amount of cash spent on Match Attax football cards) I went on to explain how clubs watch their opponents ahead of games so they can work out their tactics, look at set pieces and identify strengths and weaknesses.

Holidays and a Draw at Tring

Tring Athletic 1-1 Chesham United

How times have changed from the old days of travels; I used to scribble notes and get my mum to type them up, today I am tapping this out on my Iphone whilst my eldest son is having a scuba diving class in front of me at Hemel leisure centre.

A Triumph Over Thurrock...And the M25

You know it is still early into pre-season when you wake up excited about a friendly at Thurrock - or Purfleet as most of us will remember them as back in the old Ryman League days.
 

The game had been arranged quite late, initially Thurrock were due to play Southend on this day and we were playing Oxford City Nomads at Bisham Abbey, but a sequence of events including management changes led to this game being hastily arranged only a week or so ago; understandable under the circumstances that not too many Chesham folk chose to risk the wrath of the M25 on the first Saturday of the school holidays.

Way Down West

All the talk since promotion has been about the away trip to Truro in Cornwall. For regionalised football it is a mammoth journey - some 286 miles each way - and one that is costly to get to (it's so easy to forget these things when you are not actually having to deal with it). Of course, you know it is coming so you allow for it in the budget planning and there is no ideal time to have to make the journey. Avoiding midweek is first priority. Avoiding winter is also another desire, the last thing you want to do is get all the way down there and find the game is called off.

So when the fixtures came out on Wednesday morning the first game we all looked for was Truro City away. We didn't have to look far. First game of the season...can you believe it?

For anyone that has ever had a summer holiday in the West Country (or even went to Taunton for the first game of the season a few years back) you will be well aware of what a nightmare the traffic can be on a Saturday in the school summer holidays.

One kind supporter had done some research into getting all the players down there and back by train on the same day. Probably the most cost-effective, and one we certainly looked into, but you are also taking a gamble on the reliability of the train times and, heaven forbid, the players being able to get to Reading train station for 7.30am on a Saturday morning. What do you do if the train arrives and a couple of your star players have not arrived?

Brian McCarthy spent all day Wednesday searching for hotels that are reasonably priced and could accommodate the number of rooms needed (remember, we're talking mid summer holidays). I made some enquiries about flying down to Newquay - it was great for me on my own a couple of years ago, but totally out of our price range for transporting a whole team down!!

By Thursday morning Brian had secured an excellent coach price to take us down on Friday, stop off overnight at Exeter, before completing the journey to the game Saturday morning; returning all the way home after the game. The train would have remained the cheaper option, but in recent years we have tried to install a level of professionalism in the way we run the club. This is a new era for Chesham United and the last thing anyone wants (I hope) is for the new era to start with arriving late at a game or having players missing because of travel arrangements.

I know that Andy and the players really appreciate the gesture made in providing the overnight stop, and have been decent enough to pass on that appreciation. An indication of the type of mentality that has evolved through some consistency on the field, something we should all be proud of.

On a personal note, Weymouth away on Easter weekend could not be more perfect!

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.