Prince Edward statement

You may have seen that Barnet and Harrow Council have issued a press release on the Prince Edward site.

Our own statement is on our website.  Bottom line is nothing has changed but if you want the chance to ask questions and discuss the situation then please put 11 June, in your diary.  This is the date of the Club AGM and it will be held at Ruislip.

A great day for Wealdstone FC

i really enjoyed the couple of hours I spent down at Grosvenor Vale this afternoon at the Junior tournament that Mark Lloyd ably supported by John and Alison Moran have done such a fantastic job in organising.

The place was teeming with children supported by their parents and coaches, representing lots of clubs a really great feeling of sportsmanship and enjoyment throughout.

We were able to entertain and, dare I say, impress the Mayor of Harrow and the Deputy Mayoress of Hillingdon and demonstrate to them the positive force that Wealdstone FC can be in the community.  I have said several times that our future is based on youth and community development and this weekend is a great example of what we need to be doing.

I hope the weather holds for tomorrow and many of you can get down and support the event.  It was well worth it today.

Presentation night tonight

It was a good idea to arrange this evening’s event for a night I couldn’t do.

I’m sure it will be great though, a presentation night in our own club!

Enjoy it

ps and congratulations to all the winners – all very deserved.

New kit for a new era

Pleased to see that the potential away kit has got people very exercised on the forum and mailing list.

A couple of points about this.

We are very close to signing a major kit supplier deal – the best one (the first one?) in the Club’s history worth a significant sum over 3 years.

This will see first team kit supplied by an emerging high quality company, Macron, who have (ironically given Jermaine) recently agreed a deal to become exclusive supplier of Leeds United FC.  So we are in good company. Macron are an Italian company who produce very high quality sportswear, and these deals are part of their trying to become more established in the UK market.

We are tying up the final details at present but I was keen that we were able to offer some supporter input into the away kit at least.  So please feel free to vote, and thanks to Alan Hill for helping to get this up on the website. I wonder how many clubs give their fans the opportunity to have a say in these matters?

We will make an official announcement as soon as the deal is signed and the home kit will then be revealed.

I appreciate that kits can be pretty emotive subjects and you will never get everyone to agree – even the five of us on the board can’t agree – but when we are able to reveal full details of this deal I think most people will understand what a fantastic deal this is for the Club and I hope they will embrace the new kit.

In the last week we have made two important internal appointments and being able to announce the new kit in the coming days will be more fantastic news.

Another appointment

Delighted to confirm another appointment we have made tonight, that of Les Elliot who has agreed to become our new kit manager.

I wrote about Les a while ago as he played in goal for the club half a century ago after leaving QPR.  History swung round this season just finished when Les’ grandson Jack Sikora made his debut for the reserves.

Welcome back Les

With a new reserve team secretary yesterday and a kit man appointment today looks like Fingers has nothing much to do – we’ll obviously have to change that!

A new appointment

Some good news.

I’d like to welcome Lesley Jones who today agreed to become our new Reserve Team Secretary.

This is a position we have been desparate to fill for some time and I know that Fingers particularly will be thrilled.

Lesley’s son Gary plays for the reserves so maybe this is a ploy to ensure his selection!  Lesley will be at the presentation night on Sunday at Ruislip, so I hope everyone will introduce themselves to her and make her feel welcome.

Still in the Ryman League

I remember only too well the fun and games we had last summer when we were told this time last year that we were moving back into the Ryman League, only to then have to successfully fight the rearguard action to avoid going immediately back into the Southern League.

The league allocations are out now and full details are here on Tony Kempster’s site.

We were told last year that we shouldn’t be forcibly moved across the leagues for the next three years – so far so good.  In fact no one has been though I wonder how happy King’s Lynn will be in the Conference North.

Always interesting to see the changes, BorehamWood reprieved in our league due to the trickle down effect of Halifax Town going bust – something that has meant, remarkably, that Altrincham are saved from relegation from the Conference for the third year in a row.

Similarly Ilford and again been saved from dropping out of the Ryman League as have Slough Town in the Southern League.

Boreham Wood aside no great surprises in our league, Sutton coming down from Conference South and Tooting, Dover, Dartford and Canvey all promoted.  As always it looks a strong league – no doubt we will all be disappointed at the standard come the new year.  Lots to look forward to.

Past 30,000 hits

This week we passed 30,000 hits for this blog over the last 10-11 months.  Thanks to everyone who has spent any time reading it – I hope it is worthwhile.

I’ve no idea how they measure these stats but 30,000 seems a good number.

The pressure is on to keep writing it now and keeping it fresh.  We do have a lot of news to cover over the summer (including a couple of announcements about our kit for next season) so I’m sure there will be plenty to write about.

Please also keep the comments coming.

Pitch works start

Good news that work on the pitch started today.  In fact Roger tells me it it is currently more level than it has been all year – only it doesn’t have any grass on it.

Obviously we need to check it out at the Field of Dreams game yesterday – and boy was it poor.

Interestingly on measuring today, the pitch was found to be 2.5m less than the FA minimum and also one half was 49m long and the other 51m long.  You work it out.

More news and no doubt photos as work progresses.

Wealdstone found guilty

We were up in front of the FA today on a misconduct charge that came as a result of the Ramsgate match back in February (to remind yourself what happened click here).

Whilst we felt that all the trouble had been caused by the Ramsgate player who headbutted Liam Henderson, and by Ramsgate’s goalkeeper running over and getting involved, what can best be described as a melee broke out involving most of the players and both benches.  This was all captured by DVD footage, which we were sent.

The referee’s assessor then wrote a particularly damning report citing several fights on (and off) the pitch – a report we rejected and we wrote lengthy statements to repudiate it.  We also requested a personal hearing.

Peter Worby represented the club today and at the two hour hearing was able to cross examine the referee and one of the linesmen, as well as make a number of points about how it was our players who were incited and how our players were protecting their teammate who had been attacked.

Peter did an excellent job and I think the panel accepted much of what he said.  The trouble is that the DVD footage shows a brief confrontation between many players from both sides so we were always going to be found guilty.  However, Peter’s tremendous efforts (he was asked whether he had ever had any legal training) meant that we received a fine of £150 (as well as losing our deposit of £100) – in the circumstances probably the best we could have hoped for.

The strangest thing about the game was of course that until the final whistle hardly anything had happened to make you suspect any possibility of an incident.  In fact on the DVD you can see the final whistle and most of the players and respective management teams begin to turn towards the changing rooms at the other end of the pitch only to suddenly realise something had ‘kicked off’.

Please don’t ask what happened to Ramsgate – we simply don’t know and next season when we play them I want to ensure they are welcomed to Ruislip and we enjoy two trouble free and competitive games against them.

These things happen, fortunately not that often and of course we hope not again.  As we know the fine can be better spent elsewhere.  But if you have a court case coming up then Peter could be your man.