On Saturday we welcome our old friends from Sutton United to the Mangata Developments Stadium Meadow Park for the final National League game of the 2025/26 season. May I wish their Directors, Manager, players and supporters a pleasant stay with us and a safe journey home.
A win for us on Saturday will round off what has been a truly remarkable 12 months for me and our football club. A year that has included a very pressured, hard-fought promotion through the National League South play-offs, another 3rd round FA Cup appearance, a 4th place league position and play-off, while becoming the first National League Club to win the National League Cup.
On top of that another two grandchildren have been born into the ‘Hunter’ Clan and that’s now 18 and counting.
In truth, our progress throughout my tenure has only been possible due to your patience over the years, due to our long-term planning and my long-term partners, friends and family sticking with me. Patience, ambition and a long-term vision have in my view always been instrumental in maintaining necessary club investment in certain areas. As such we are now seeing our future aspirations shining brighter and that was shown recently when our long-standing planning application at the south end of the Stadium finally got approval.
The new South Stand and associated project from concept to completion will have taken a tad over a decade and involved a number of key local and national partners that include BWFC, BW PASE Ltd, Hertsmere Borough Council, EBTC, AFC, AWFC, Football Foundation and the Premier League. They have all in very different ways believed in me or supported the club and I thank them one and all.
We now await one last decision from one of our more local institutions in Elstree and Borehamwood Town Council (EBTC) and I will report back to you the outcome when they have considered our proposal in earnest and made their decision.
During my time here, I have always (even when others couldn’t quite see it) been very transparent about my long-term vision for our football club, park, local residents, town and our wider community and I believe in the structures we’ve all built.
Looking back I possibly did have an inexperienced vision 27 years ago on how to improve things for our supporters, our football club, our residents and our park users, but my experience now helps bring a longevity toward the additional visitors and supporters we’ve brought into the area who spend in our high streets, retail parks, hotels, pubs, restaurants, petrol stations and car parks.
Our Stadium also sits within the socially deprived Ward of Cowley, and I believe my ‘invest local’ policy, which has been going on for decades, now creates local employment, it brings in outside investment and creates additional third party spend within my Ward and around Borehamwood.
Since I arrived here in 1999, the step-by-step investment and planning 27 years later, is now seen across our whole facility and it feels to me like we are becoming a well-rounded non-league football club and a hugely respected entity within football in our own right.
I say that because unlike so many local clubs who have stagnated, we’ve already built our Academy Structure, our Study and Analyst Suites, Gym, West Stand, North Bank, Broadcast Compound, new entrance road, new home Turnstiles, Toilets, Floodlights, Site Lighting, Car Park and Fence Lines.
We have already built a beautiful Desso Grass-master Pitch complete with Irrigation and recently built new Technical and Media Areas. On top of that we’ve upgraded our Floodlights yet again and built our new Bars and Function Suites, namely the Glass House, Ricko’s and Oscars.
To be clear, 27 years ago myself and my family inherited mayhem, distrust, opposition, carnage, disinterest and a rundown club that no longer sat at the heart of its community. I was shocked and I knew my late father Mickey, who managed here successfully in the 60’s and 70’s, would have turned in his grave.
This club in truth had been owned by an outsider and under the surface when I took over it was on life support and was very close to somebody turning the machine off. The club at the time relied on a few local drinkers, perhaps 50 functions a year and around 100 or so loyal home supporters. The truth was nobody within the wider community even cared anymore…
As such we set about trying to change hearts and minds which was not easy, often soul destroying and in truth it nearly killed me. The breakthrough came when I invested in a planning application that was not popular with HBC but came to fruition and by me getting a very hard-fought Astro and Changing facility planning consent through at the second attempt, I could finally look forward.
I then had to put my money where my mouth was personally, while creating some outside investment and together with my staff we built a modern Astro Pitch, a modern Academy from scratch, and built additional changing rooms, offices, Study Suites etc all of which meant we could begin our journey up the leagues in earnest.
Being a poorly supported Isthmian League club back then allowed me the time to take us to the next level with a tad more detail in my business plan by creating new sustainable club structures and a few wider reaching and long-lasting income streams. This at the time when I looked at other similar clubs was a lot more forward thinking than most of the other local clubs with bigger fanbases.
Off the pitch I insisted we became more community minded but also more modernised, and it meant we were not just relying on crowds of 100 to 150, or relying solely on match day, bar, and function income or me underwriting the losses.
In truth even our fiercest critics back then (even if they don’t want to admit it) now recognise we are a top, top non-league community club because of those very difficult decisions 27 years ago and every day we are getting closer to being an EFL club both on and off the pitch and who knows what the next three weeks might bring us?
As such win, lose or draw on Saturday afternoon, 4th place is guaranteed and the play-offs already assured but, as we know, they are impossible to forecast. Looking back since the play-offs were introduced, this will be our seventh play-off attempt, and I’m told by Grant Morris our Fans Liaison Officer, that no other owner within non-league has competed in more or won more than us in that time, as we’ve won three incredibly emotional play-offs.
This though will be our fourth play-off at the very top level of the National League and that’s not been so kind, as to date, we’ve lost either in the semi-finals or at Wembley. That said we’ve always acquitted ourselves well and it should be noted, we’ve only ever lost to the eventual winners, while never having lost a home game.
First though let’s concentrate on taking some momentum into our home play-off quarter final on Wednesday, where either Forest Green or Southend United await. If we can find a way past either of them, then the club, dressing room, and our supporters will have a long away day up at Carlisle United on the Sunday, with the victors booking their club, town, and supporters a date with destiny at Wembley Stadium.
The only time we’ve ever played at Wembley in our history was in the National League play-off final where we met Tranmere Rovers. They were in truth fortunate on the day to beat us 2-1 but I’ve never stopped dreaming the impossible dream and until we reach the EFL that dream will go on.
On our way to Wembley that year, we beat a very good AFC Fylde side 2-1. We then knocked out Saturday’s opponents Sutton United 3-2 in the semis at their place before losing at Wembley. That said we are a bigger, better, and more well equipped community football club now than we were back then, so again I’m perhaps dreaming the NOT so impossible dream…?
Since beating Sutton United back then, the Ambers have themselves been to the football league via promotion during the pandemic era. In their first season in the EFL they went to Wembley and lost in the EFL Trophy. They have since changed to foreign ownership like so many local clubs, been relegated back to the National League and have changed manager three times so nobody can ever say it’s been dull recently at Gander Green Lane for the loyal supporters of SUFC.
If things go as I expect on Saturday afternoon, we will be facing a very good Forest Green Rovers side here on Wednesday. If that is the case then it’s important that the ‘Wood Army’ and our wider ‘Wood’ faithful get busy online and secure their play-off tickets, as I would expect FGR to sell out their away allocation.
With that in mind, I want to make it as easy as possible for our fans to get their tickets early and as such, we’ve already put our season ticket holders’ play-off allocation on sale. We will make our database allocation available by this Wednesday, so please get busy and get your tickets early. After Saturday we will I hope only have limited home tickets available that will then go to our season ticket and database stragglers and after that only to our local school children and local community groups.
The play-offs as we know are hugely emotive and last season against Dorking and Maidstone showed us all why home advantage is so important and why home and away segregation is necessary to ensure everyone’s safety and enjoyment across the whole of our facility. Your safety and enjoyment are always at the heart of all of our segregation and ticketing decisions, hence why this game will be ALL TICKET with NO tickets sold on the evening of the game.
Finally, and I do need to say this with all sincerity to all my very loyal staff, partners, sponsors, supporters and of course to our incredible dressing room on the last day of the 2025/26 league season, thank you, thank you, thank you, because this club is absolutely nothing without you.
It was only a little over a year ago, I was without perhaps acknowledging it to myself in a very dark space. I knew a year before I had let you all down, I’d taken you back into a regional league, I hated every minute of it and the guilt, sadness and regret I felt sat heavy with me.
When I look back throughout that period you stuck with me and look where we now are. The laughter is back, the sun is now shining on us again, this club in my opinion has never, and I mean never, been this good and nor has the facility or football we play.
For me to see our West Stand and East Stand full, and watch our North Bank in full cry and bouncing, is both joyous and wonderful and shows me that “god loves a trier”………we are not on our knees anymore, we are looking forward and perhaps the last two seasons in hindsight was a blessing in disguise for all of us?
So, whatever happens after Saturday afternoon, let’s enjoy the day, let’s celebrate and enjoy finishing 4th, let’s enjoy this being the most successful season in our history and let’s take this opportunity until April 29th at least to “dream the impossible dream”, because in my opinion, we’ve all earned it.
Whoever you support on Saturday afternoon, let’s hope for an open, attacking game and may the best team win.
Take care,
Danny.
