Tonight we welcome Leicester City and their Development team to the Mangata Developments Stadium. Can I wish their Directors, Manager, Players and Supporters a pleasant stay with us and a safe journey home.
Well as we’ve not won a home game for 10 days it’s official this is now a crisis haha!! In truth I think our performances over the last two games have other than finishing been pretty damn good and after battering Tamworth here, we just didn’t put our chances away and paid the price with a very undeserved 2-1 defeat.
On Saturday we were also good value for our hard earned 3-0 win up at Gateshead, in a game where we completely dominated until going down to 10 men but again, we didn’t take our chances and that might be a slight concern for Luke?
That said, a result tonight and everyone getting minutes would be “just what the doctor ordered”, as we don’t want our home form becoming a concern. Although with just a loss to Rochdale and Tamworth here in the last 8 months, it’s hardly going to knock the confidence within this squad.
With us now competing at the top end of the league, all our results and performances from here on in, will get scrutinised a little more closely, so we’ll just have to deal with that.
It’s why I’m very content and happy with Luke, the dressing room, the staff and the whole football club at the moment. Trust me they’re all working so hard and I expect them to dig in when they need results while continuing to play great football.
Off the pitch we’ll continue to provide our supporters with value for money community initiatives, like our half price pre-Christmas season ticket offers, whilst finding ways to create great match-day experiences and with everyone seemingly happy with the club at present, what’s not to like?
I’m also very happy that Luke and Charlie are not resting on their laurels and still looking at improving our squad. That was evidenced recently with the loan additions of Ted Curd from Chelsea, Regan Booty from Barrow and the permanent signing of my ‘old friend’ Mr Zak Brunt from Barnet so let me give a warm welcome to one and all….
The signings mentioned above will I feel prove to be great business and hugely definitive in regards to any club success we might achieve this season. Those signings and the return to fitness of Luke Norris and Jack Payne, have allowed us to loan out Junior Dixon to Hampton, Nathan Ashmore to Bedford Town and Aaron Henry to Hornchurch to get themselves game time.
I’m historically a Chairman who’s happy to spend his money if spent wisely, but I do always have one eye on being fiscally responsible. Put bluntly I don’t like wasting money on players sitting in the stand and I don’t like ill-informed or lazy agents/intermediaries telling our players (their clients) to sit idle and not go out on loan and get game time, when they need to remain match fit.
As an observation I have been more than impressed with our squads’ discipline, our fitness levels and the clubs togetherness this season. I believe our unity is a very big reason why our squad not only won promotion last season, but why it has coped so well this season with the amount of games it’s had to deal with thus far.
This is game number 25 I believe in our season to date, and we get to play a very good Leicester City Development team. My hope is that we can get ourselves a positive result this evening and look to progress ourselves into the last eight of the National League Cup.
Positivity and calmness from the top can often create an environment that promotes confidence and everyone being at ease within their environment. I believe if we can get that bit right and not have a Chairman or owner bouncing off the walls. Intelligent leadership will lead to your manager, dressing room and staff alike understanding what success might feel like, and with no fear of falling, the finish line at some time will come into sight and if we have NO FEAR that might just lead to over achievement?
As an underdog club, over expectation is perhaps a curse that at times can be a burden. That said, not to embrace pressure positively after making a great start to a season, is simply not living in the moment. For me I want to feel excited and alive, I want to to be excited by the challenges ahead, so it’s no good me suddenly getting overly worried now about what failure looks like after our very good start.
If I try to ignore our league position, is something that would suppress the feel-good factor that so many of us are feeling at present. As such it would stop us enjoying this moment and I for one don’t want that. I think our early season form has spread joy and happiness throughout our football club, around our town and has even given a feel-good factor to our wider community, to our loyal sponsors and to our long serving partners.
Our performances to date have us just two points off the summit and that means we are already overachieving, and with average home attendances also increasing there is now real belief in what we’re doing, and Luke is doubling down on that.
So historically this is a great time to be a ‘Wood’ fan and even after 27 seasons in the Chair, I still love proving the naysayers, haters and the doubters wrong, I still love going to bed plotting, planning, designing, funding and orchestrating how i future proof our small community football club and I still love over achieving and bloodying the noses of the bigger clubs at National League level and above.
The truth is my long-term ambitions, partnerships, future proofing and upgrading of our facility, has meant we are slowly becoming a bigger club in our own right. I believe the dressing room, staff and club are now beginning to understand that. As we are once again getting that feeling that we are close to creating one of those joyous overachieving seasons and long may that continue.
So, what are my ambitions for this season? Well firstly my ambitions must be realistic and achievable and that of course means I’ve adapted them more recently, but I suspect they are perhaps very similar to yours?
After our great start I’m now more confident about pushing people to another level, as I’m more confident in their ability to cope with any pressure that might come their way, which means I’m saying to my key staff, forget any thoughts of failure, forget the naysayers, forget the doubters and let’s dream big.
Success in this division with just two going up is always going to be a tough ask. That said, I’m always measured but genuinely believe we can achieve not only a Play Off place this season but a top 5 finish. I also believe we will beat Newport County here in the FA Cup 2nd Round and reach the 3rd Round and who knows where that might take us?
I know a result this evening will almost put us into the quarter finals of the National League Cup, and this is a Cup I believe we can win. Whilst the FA Trophy offers us another trip up Wembley Way and that has always been a dream and ambition for both Luke and myself.
So, I say let’s reach for the stars but remain humble, measured, calm and hard working. Let’s ensure we enjoy ourselves along the way and let’s stay in the moment. The task in hand in the next few years is to try to take our football club, town and our community to the EFL and to Wembley once again.
These are of course just my hopes, ambitions and dreams……..but in truth I’m not getting any younger, so I’ll need to back Luke, but let’s back each other, let’s all dream big and let’s see where it takes us?
The above are all very tough asks, but they are with luck realistic, and if we can achieve any of those aims this season, it would be a truly historical season for a club of our size. In truth we are going to need a bit of good fortune with injuries, and we’ll need to work smart not stupid within the loan market, while being disciplined to avoid suspensions as we go into the second half of the season.
What’s also very important to me, is watching our fanbase quietly growing, as that will be vital for our clubs’ future health and success. I will once again be doing my very best to assist our wider community, with value for money crowd initiatives and community deals, all of which might attract another few hundred regulars to our ever-improving stadium, facility and football team.
After this evening, we face a fellow play off hopefuls Halifax here. The game will be screened live on DAZN on Saturday evening with a 5:30pm kick off and as such I will make it a part of my next community initiatives, with all our season ticket holders being able to bring a friend on the evening ‘free of charge’.
Halifax isn’t quite a must win game yet, but if we want to keep up with the other play-off teams, then we need a win and put simply, we need as many of you as possible here to create an atmosphere, create the noise and drag a performance out of the players. I’ll look to create another local ‘primary school’ initiative on top of the above for our local kids, as it does help us get more local adults attending and if I’m successful, we can expect another improved home crowd for the Halifax game.
After that game we face Wolverhampton Wanderers here, with all home season ticket holders getting ‘free’ entry. A win that night (if we get a result this evening) would definitely book our place in the National League Cup quarter final. As such Wolves becomes another important stepping stone, that would take us closer to where we want to be while allowing certain players to get the extra game time they need.
As a gentle reminder to our supporters, and yes, I know you are notoriously slow in buying your home FA Cup tickets, but the Newport County game is now just around the corner and at present their fans are wiping the floor with ours and out buying our fans 3 to 1 in current ticket sales.
In truth if you want an upset, then it has to start with you. As we are going to need you all to turn up, pack the North Bank out, create an atmosphere and if you can do that, then we know you’ll bring the noise, the madness and that will give us a great chance of causing an upset.
This is the FA Cup 2nd Round, let’s NOT let this chance PASS US BY. This is a game that can honestly transform our football club and town with the 3rd Round now in sight. Put simply we are just one win and one fantastic draw away from facing Premier League opposition once again and who knows where that might take us?
Finally, I need to go back 10 days and thank our lovely ‘Ladies’ and ‘Girls’ for making our 4th annual ‘Ladies Day’ and Night such a success. Over two hundred and fifty of you attended on the day and as always you were a joy to host, and you increased the crowd to over 1,350. The Karaoke night which followed was also a huge success and though the Tamworth result wasn’t what any of us had hoped for, we must accept these setbacks with good grace, wipe our mouths and always, always, always go again.
Remember tonight is a 7pm kick off, all our home season ticket holders get free entry this evening and whoever you support, let’s hope for an open, attacking game and may the best team win.
Take care,
Danny.
