Tonight we welcome Forest Green Rovers to the Mangata Developments Stadium Meadow Park. May I wish their directors, manager, players and supporters a pleasant stay with us and a safe journey home.
Well, the league positions after nine and a half months are now settled, with us finishing 4th and FGR 7th. As such the stage is set this evening for two very good teams to battle it out with the victors travelling up to Cumbria to meet Carlisle United on Sunday to try and secure a place in the play-off final at Wembley Stadium.
In reality the talking is now all but done and in these one-off games it’s often about who performs on the day or night. While everyone within the play-off format will hope for a bit of lady luck or a magic moment. In our case as our goal tally suggests, we do have a few match winners like FGR do, and we just hope that our boys fire on the night and prove to be the difference this evening.
I feel as a club and community that we can look back over the last 12-months with enormous pride. A year ago we were still a regional club but won promotion back at the first attempt to the National League last May and since then we have beaten two EFL Clubs in Crawley Town and Newport County and got ourselves to the 3rd round of the FA Cup yet again.
We also won the National League Cup beating West Ham United under 21’s in the process, and got to a record total of 90 points and record goal tally at this level. On top of that we went and broke our record transfer fee to sign Zak Brunt and finished 4th in this very competitive league.
On Saturday we finished with a league crowd of 1,471 and an average of over 1,200 for the season, not huge for some clubs but still an increase of over 40% on our previous seasons league attendance average. To some they cry “tin pot” but for me we are still moving forward and in truth we have made small steps progress for the last two decades.
After our win on Saturday we held the club’s Annual Gala Dinner at the Village Hotel and I’d like to especially thank Mandee Morris, my manager, players, staff, partners, sponsors, the Town Mayor, local Councillors and supporters for attending a warm and often humorous presentation evening. An evening that allowed me to thank so many people personally and if I didn’t already know it, I do now, as I’m a very lucky Chairman to have so many wonderful people wrapped around me, and I know this over achieving community football club is in very good hands.
Whatever the outcome on the pitch this evening and over the next few weeks, I need to sincerely thank Luke, Charlie, the staff, our dressing room and you the supporters for making this last year on the pitch so exciting and exhilarating. The care, kindness and friendships made across the entire club make coming to work and the match day a pleasure and whatever happens on or off the pitch tonight, it cannot erase what we’ve all achieved together over these last 12-months.
The size of our club and our support base within what is a small town, means we are seen by many of the bigger clubs as an underdog club or in some cases the “undeserving club” based on average crowds coming into these play offs. In truth, I cannot understand those sentiments but I do know one stat, we are the only club in these play-offs who have not ever experienced being a football league club but our desire to rectify that burns deep and as an underdog club we plan on changing that.
For months now I have told all who would listen, our target was a top 5 or above finish and we have achieved that. I’ve also asked you since Christmas to “dream the impossible dream” because your hopes and dreams cost nothing and through our ambition, investment and recruitment this is now without any doubt the best dressing room, who play the best football and have the best attitudes that I’ve ever witnessed in my time here.
Anything can and will of course happen in the play-offs and I say that because we’ve been in six before, this is our seventh and we’ve won three of them. In truth, they are absolutely bonkers at times, as we all well remember from last year when we beat Dorking Wanderers here 4-3 when trailing 3-1 with just 7 minutes remaining.
Following that last gasp win we then went down to play-off favourites Torquay United and beat them 1-0 with a Matt Rush goal, before overcoming a good Maidstone United side here 1-0 through a Charles Clayden special to say goodbye to regional football once again, and I thank god for that.
I know we’re still called “tin pot” and in some away boardrooms, where someone always find a way to remind me of our crowd sizes, that we are where we are only because of Arsenal but done in such a smarmy uneducated way it makes my skin itch haha.
For some strange reason they love to quote our support levels, and some even over equate and inflate our playing budget to my face. Perhaps it helps them feel better about themselves before we beat them and even before I’ve left the room they they start whinging because we’re not supposed to do that to them based on our average attendances, what absolute nonsense.
They fail to understand the life of an underdog club coming up through the leagues, building their club step-by-step as they go, but that the beauty of this country’s footballing pyramid system and as York City and Rochdale have shown on Saturday, our pyramid at the top of our league desperately now needs 3 up.
For me what some people perceive to be our weakness are in fact our strengths. We win football matches and compete with the bigger clubs because we work hard, invest properly, work smart not stupid, and we don’t ever rush to make wrong decisions.
Each year we try to improve our ground, our wider facilities, our togetherness, our wider income streams and our work ethic but we do it quietly and choose to go under the radar. On top of that I ensure we carry no historic debt and we have genuinely learned to have no inferiority complex over the years when facing the bigger clubs whether it’s the Wrexham’s, Chesterfield’s, Stockport County’s , Leyton Orient’s or Oldham’s of this world and in truth we beat them all.
This season the ex-football league clubs at the top have been York City, Hartlepool United, Rochdale, FGR, Scunthorpe United, Southend United, Halifax and Carlisle United to name but a few. Each season we are getting a tad closer to them, because we aspire to be them one day and if we can keep knocking on the EFL door, then I believe one day it will open.
We also respect their very loyal supporters, but we are very happy in our own skin, we know exactly who we are and what we need to do. We know our values, work ethic, talent, experience and ability within our squad, and I know the work ethic of me, my family, my loyal staff, our manager and our dressing room.
More than anyone I know the importance of my staff’s loyalty, of longevity, and I know the determined mindsets of my inner circle, who all understand I cannot be without them, not if I’m to ever chart a successful course to the EFL. As such, whatever happens tonight whether we win or lose, we will always act correctly, with integrity and with manners, by retaining true sporting values not creating political ones, as that is something our once proud nation was famed for.
I say that because when the game is over this evening and whoever has emerged as the victor, we will know how to lose and that is just as important as knowing how to win. Trust me if FGR succeed tonight, no matter the circumstances, I will offer my hand, wipe my mouth and no matter the personal pain, wish them well at Carlisle on Sunday.
Then trust me within 48-hours, along with Charlie Hunter and Luke Garrard, we’ll sit down over lunch or supper and set about trying to achieve “the impossible dream” and an automatic promotion place next season.
So tonight I simply say “to the victor the spoils” and whoever you support let’s hope for an open, attacking game and may the best team win.
Take care,
Danny.
