Today, we welcome promotion rivals Harrogate Town to the Mangata Developments Stadium Meadow Park. Can I wish their directors, manager, players and supporters a pleasant stay with us and a safe journey home.
Well, it’s been a more than eventful ten days or so since we last played here, when we beat a young Newcastle United team 2-1. Since then, we’ve drawn 1-1 down at Eastleigh after conceding a late goal, having battered them for most of the game.
On Wednesday, we travelled north and deservedly beat a stubborn Scunthorpe United side 2-1, with debutant Ben Whitfield scoring a late headed winner. As such, we now top the league by three points after an eight-game unbeaten start to our league campaign.
On the downside, we lost striker Matt Rush to a short-term injury down at Eastleigh, but on the upside, we’ve brought in both Ben Whitfield and Conor Wilkinson on three-month loans from Barrow and Solihull Moors respectively to bolster the ranks.
Callum Reynolds is also now nearing a return to play, with his concussion protocols soon coming to an end. When you consider that we’ve also strengthened the squad over the last three weeks with high-quality players such as Jay Bird and Ted Curd, it’s no wonder that it gives me great pride to see Luke Garrard and Charlie Hunter building our squad so intelligently.
It’s amazing how positive things are in most areas of the club and, having achieved promotion five times in my time here, I know that challenging for a title or promotion takes a lot out of you. It takes focus and a huge collective effort from everyone, as it’s certainly not an 11-a-side game anymore.
Next week, after ten years of trying, we will begin in earnest the work down at the South End of the stadium. In truth, we will embark on a 10 to 11-month build programme that will take up much of my energy, focus and time.
That said, it will encompass new community changing rooms, a rehab/tiny tots astro pitch, an away fans’ zone, digital turnstiles, new toilets, new catering and bar units, plus a new maintenance and grounds building, a new maintenance office and a new control room, along with lots of mechanical and electrical groundwork.
On top of that, we must look to the future and build new supporter pathways, new entry and exit roads, and new fence lines and security gates. We also have new lighting designs, new signage and, oh, of course, a brand-new shiny South Stand to build that will take us to EFL level in terms of our ground grading and increase our capacity to well over 5,600.
Anyway, that’s enough of that. Let’s get back to today.
As such, I would like to thank all of our travelling supporters who got themselves down to Eastleigh and then up to Scunthorpe United. What an effort. Trust me, it never goes unnoticed and you are making a huge, huge difference this season. Hopefully, I’ll see many of you up at Solihull Moors next week.
It just leaves me to say, whoever you support, let’s hope for an open, attacking game and may the best team win.
Take care,
Danny
