(5 weeks until the National League kicks off)
So as we get closer to September and the temperature cools and the nights start to draw in, we begin to feel that there really is going to be football at the EBB Stadium in just over a month. Danny is busy putting teams together to get some match practice and these comprise players from last season who have re-signed, new players who have signed having left other clubs, our won academy/youth players who are being blooded with the first team and a number of trialists.
As of today we have signed the following:
Mitch Walker, Ryan Hall, George Fowler, Kodi Lyons-Foster, Alex Finney, Jamie Sendles-White,
Lewis Kinsella, Alfie Whittingham, James Rowe, Reece Wylie, Josh Rees, Craig Tanner, Chike
Kandi, Joel Nouble, Harrison Panayiotou and Mo Bettamer.
Danny is still looking at possibly a couple of additions and they could well come from the trialists on display at the numerous friendlies taking place. Not unnaturally the club is hesitant to name trialists. It is not very sensible to publicly praise and name a trialist who might score a hat trick pre-season which then attracts other clubs who compete for his signature. So those on Shotsweb and Twitter who wonder who Number 20 was last weekend, well sorry but it was Number 20.
It has been encouraging to reveal that some of the mystery players who our fans are trying to
identify are actually from our own academy and a huge recognition and praise must go to Ross
McNeilly and Ross White plus their coaches for the outstanding work they do in turning boys into
men on the football field.
Our season ticket holders are about to receive a letter from Matt Wigman our ticketing guru asking them about seat preferences and “bubbles”. No we are not referring to champagne. These are the “bubbles” that enable members from no more than two households to sit together in our stadium without the need to “social space”. Because in our seating area we will be keeping alternate rows empty and keeping two spare seats between fans free to social space, it is so important for us to identify groupings to maximise our capacity. We have said it before but the more we address the processes required to cope with coronavirus the easier it will be for season ticket holders when seeking a consistent seat match after match.
Most of you will have diarised the friendly matches scheduled over the coming weeks. Look out for
updates nearer the time on our website as all of these matches will have capacity and possibly
ticketing constraints. We want you to get back in the mood and watch as many as possible but with
the virus situation as it stands many of these matches will be subject to arrangement changes
leading up to the days before kick off.
We’d like to send another thank you out to our sponsors again this week. We are extremely thankful to ELM Group for sponsoring the ELM Lounge and GlucoRX for their sponsorship of the Eastbank as well as Academy and Youth.