Tonight, we welcome St Albans City to the Mangata Pay UK stadium. May I wish their Directors, Manager, players and supporters an enjoyable stay with us and a safe short journey home.
Well, November was a month of resets, reality checks, and an overall acceptance of where we presently sit within the league and what we need and must do to achieve our ambitions for this season.
Football aside, it has been a very good month for progressing my long- standing vision regarding our future and our stadium plans. As such, I can report to you without going into too much detail, that the planning, the consultation and the solution finding regarding the Brook Road Car Park, Meadow Park and our Stadium build at the South end of the ground, is now in full swing and well underway. With a fair wind, we hope to have a new full planning application in with HBC by April/May 2025, and approved by the summer of 2025, as I’ve had a pre-application at the South end of the ground with HBC for the last 18 months.
That pre-app was very helpful and after written feedback from the planning department and many face-to-face meetings, we are all now very hopeful that we are on the same page. All of that means that HBC Officers, Councillors, Executives, our residents, park users and the club can only benefit from a true collaboration and union.
In truth, the good news this pre-Christmas has just kept on coming, because as of this morning (Tuesday, 10th December), after a long and thoughtful negotiation with myself, Charlie Hunter and the AFC and AWFC hierarchy, we have signed off on two improved, more rounded and mutually beneficial Arsenal and Arsenal Women 10-year contracts.
These long-term relationships and collaborations between BWFC, AFC and AWFC not only underpin long- standing friendships, but cement a long-standing partnership with my friends at Arsenal and it’s these thoughtful agreements that enable us to go from strength to strength.
This is now my 26th season here in the Chair and in that time, we have rebuilt the stadium, rebuilt the facility, we’ve had four promotions, five or six play-off seasons, we’ve even been to Wembley in a play-off final. We have also had numerous runs to the 1st and 2nd Round Proper of the FA Cup, whilst on three occasions had FA Cup runs to the 3rd, 4th and 5th rounds.
In fact, the last time we met tonight’s opponents was in the FA Cup after we had already beaten Barnet and Eastleigh. After beating St Albans City here, we went on to beat AFC Wimbledon and then AFC Bournemouth, before playing at Goodison Park and we were even in the hat for the FA Cup quarter finals that year.
Many non-league clubs will never experience that type of high… that said, after a decade or more of many highs, a few lows and sustained success, we are now experiencing a comparative low and so we must stick together, stay resolute and find the right path to come back from our present setbacks, as I feel a new era of success is not that far away.
Our success on the pitch has helped me though with our stadium and facility improvements during that time. When aligned to great staff, thousands of man-hours put in and millions of pounds of investment, our facility builds and upgrades are now underpinning many of those other achievements and it’s our foresight in facility investment which will I hope give us the platform to keep looking forward in the months and years ahead.
It’s why I believe regardless of what is achieved on the pitch this season, and trust me I will support Luke and Charlie in every way possible with the budget, that we must re-focus as a club, still move it forward and complete the whole stadium, which could perhaps end up being my biggest achievement here.
With one eye on the future and another eye on my age – a completed four-sided Stadium would be a personal milestone for years and years of working toward a bigger vision and a plan but also reward for working with so many great people, as the investment in our staff and facility has led to real growth.
To be clear, the new build at the south end of the ground will cost millions – but would allow us to create an away fans zone and community area, allow us to put in extra toilets, digital turnstiles, and a new covered South Stand similar to the North Bank. It will create great lighting and signage, enhance the Park and improve car parking and will also allow us to put in a fans bar and food outlets at the away end, and even create a new access road off Brook Road Car Park directly into the ground.
All of this means I could complete the project in three stages and the aim is to have the first phase completed by Christmas 2025 and the Second phase by late summer 2026. The third phase which includes taking our overall seating capacity up to 2,000 is yet to be scheduled, but you can rest assured that I will make sure we are EFL compliant.
What does EFL compliant mean? Firstly, it means having a Stadium that can hold upwards of 5,000 supporters, whilst having a 2,000-seating capacity within that total. Of course, it means the exits, entrances, sight lines, turnstiles, floodlights and all things in between can deal with the overall capacity and be compliant with all EFL rules.
Our new designs will show a fantastic new covered South Stand similar to the North Bank, how we can achieve 2,000 seats and the away end visuals will encompass new toilets, a new away bar/hospitality area, food outlets, digital turnstiles, lighting, signage, community areas, a new access road and even a new ground teams office area. The latter will also house a new irrigation tank, a new maintenance building for the mowers, machinery etc and storage compound.
I’ve worked hand in glove with HBC officers and Councillors for more than 25 years and we’ve completed many projects together – but I’ve never seen them more enthused, energised, forward-thinking and collaborative in all my time here. In truth this park, car park and stadium project and the collaboration with HBC are exciting and I feel their enthusiasm is down to years and years of honest and robust conversation between us all, which has perhaps led to complete trust in each other and what our roles are within our community.
As such, by the end of January, I hope to be in a position to unveil to you all some truly stunning visuals, but until then the Park, Car Park and Stadium updates are over, and I’ll get on with the behind-closed-door meetings and the matters in hand to keep things on track and moving forward.
Back to tonight and, of course, our friends from St Albans City are the visitors and stand in the way of us entering one of the play-off positions. They have recently appointed Ian Culverhouse as their new gaffer, and he is someone I’ve long admired and respected from afar. His and Paul Bastock’s appointment makes tonight’s assignment that much harder – but these are the nights that you have to deal with, and local derbies are obstacles you must overcome if you genuinely want to maintain your promotion ambitions.
No doubt the atmosphere this evening, as in any local derby, will be noisy and partisan from both sets of supporters so let’s enjoy this sporting rivalry as it’s been a while, but let’s also remember to maintain the long-standing friendships built among so many people from our Town and their City. Being partisan is what makes sporting rivalry the best but let’s remember it’s still a game and when the game is over, our friendships and respect remain, and they do matter.
Lastly, whoever you support let’s hope for an open, attacking game and may the best team win.
Take care,
Danny.
