No football to report on this week as last Saturday’s game at Farnborough fell victim to the weather and Chesham’s women’s team also had a weekend off as their game at The Meadow was postponed as the pitch was under a blanket of snow on Sunday.
You will most likely have seen announcements recently as we look to strengthen the squad and deal with player injuries (and suspensions, but we will not dwell on that!). Just before the Hemel Hempstead Town game Matt Lench returned to the club, having first played for us in the 2012/13 season and has since been playing at Hitchin, Slough Town, Wealdstone and St Albans City from where we signed him. This week we announced the loan extension of goalkeeper Dillon Addai for another month. Formerly of Leicester City, Dillon had previously loan spells at Ramsgate this season and Hayes & Yeading United last season. On behalf of everyone at the club I would like to thank Millwall for their assistance in continuing the loan deal.
Tomorrow we travel around the M25 to Aveley, a side we beat at home earlier in the season with two very late goals to win an incredibly exciting match 3-2. The weather is again going to play havoc with fixtures up and down the country but our game should go ahead as Aveley have installed an artificial pitch at their relatively new ground, so we should be all set to push ahead with the match and build on the win over Hemel Hempstead on New Years Day. As always, your support at away matches is hugely appreciated, if you can make the journey, I look forward to seeing you there.
Talking of pitches, ours at The Meadow has taken a battering recently with matches played in very wet conditions in recent weeks. We have started work on repairing the damage and getting it back to the excellent standard we have become accustomed to, Craig our groundsman has been doing an excellent job on this in very difficult conditions – it is currently under a thick layer of ice!
As part of completing our ground-grading I have this morning been down to club sponsor Recycled Products who have very kindly donated the grilled metal that is needed in the turnstiles to protect our operators – a big thank you to Recycled Products for that. As a club we could not exist without our sponsors, please do take the time to look around the ground and flick through the programme whenever you are looking for a product or service and be sure to support those local businesses that are supporting the club, and local businesses in general. The more we support our high street and local businesses, the more jobs we keep local, and the more Chesham thrives, which is a good thing for all of us. This season I have been very humbled by the level of support we have received from local businesses; it is important that we do not take it for granted and do our bit to reciprocate.
On Monday we had our monthly board meeting where I was able to bring the full Board up to speed with everything that has gone on recently regarding the new ground project and how close we are to being able to put forward our application to the council. There are just one or two more documents we are waiting for and then we should be moving to the next stage. At the risk of sounding repetitive from over recent years, when the time is right, we will have full and open consultations with all interest parties, especially supporters, prior to finalising details and the start of any building work so that everyone can have an input.
In other news we are passing over £1,200 raised by supporters and some directors of the club to the Chiltern Foodbank as a contribution to the excellent work they did to feed the more needy residents over Christmas. This is in addition to 59.6kg of food collected from supporters at matches – a big thank you to everyone that supported this effort. Finally, we have started work on designing our new home and away kits for the 2025/26 season, which I think you will like.
I hope to seem many of you at Aveley tomorrow, safe travels to those that do make the journey. Then on Sunday our women’s team travel to AFC Sudbury, your support is always appreciated.
