Today, we welcome Maldon & Tiptree to the Riverside Stadium for another Isthmian League encounter. If the match is as exciting as our last home match, we will be in for a treat. A second half strike from the Ginger Messi secured all three points against Basildon, to crown an excellent display from the lads. We welcome our former player Josh Lee to the Hall, who recently transferred from Newmarket to today's opponents.
We are now entering the stage of the season when suspensions start kicking in. Last week we were without Shawry, after he collected his fifth yellow against Basildon, and today we are without Chipps, for his fifth yellow of the season last week, and also Josh Collins who got a straight red at Felixstowe. That was a little unfortunate, as his shirt was literally being ripped off his back. The protagonist of this incident only got a yellow, which perhaps actually should have been a red, and a penalty awarded to us. Anyway, the cards are hitting us know, and the team will be stretched accordingly.
We knew this would be a challenging season, but there is still along way to go, a lot of points to be won, and we definitely have enough within our squad to stay in this division.
I am not allowed to mention anything about the game at large, that might be deemed controversial, so I hereby congratulate Barbra Banda of Zambia, for winning the BBC women's footballer of the year recently. I am sure the award was fully deserved.
Now to someone who really deserves an award. Today, the FA are presenting Lol Houghton a special award for his fifty years service to Mildnehall Town, which isprobably a few years overdue to be honest. Lol has recently retired from his matchday fundraising role, and he has been absent recently due to the poor weather, but Lol is here today, so please show your appreciation to this dedicated man, who has been volunteering for this club for over half a century. Thank you LOL HOUGHTON, you are a real man of the community, and we are immensely proud of you.
We are entering a busy period now with game coming fast and furious, with two big home matches over the festive period, BURY TOWN on 26th December and NEWMARKET TOWN on January 4th. We also play Heybridge Swifts here next week so please come out and support your club in our quest to cement our position in step 4 football.
One person I would like to praise this week is Mark Butcher, the grandson of Gordon Butcher, who discovered the Roman treasure hoard in West Row back in 1942. Booga is our own treasure. Former player here at Mildenhall before going on to bigger things at Swaffham and Chatteris, Booga has been organising the Pre match sessions for various youth teams over the last 12 months. These have been very popular and the youngsters love it. Today we have our own Mildenhall U12s on the pitch before the match. Thank you Mark, it's great to see the happy faces on the kids, and their families, as you put them through their paces.
Thats it today. I hope we have another cracking contest today, I hope we come out with some reward apart from dirty knees, and I hope you enjoy the day. This is real football. That stuff you see on the big screen, that you pay hundreds of pounds to go to, well yeah, that's something else, its a consumer product. Saying that, we want you to consume everything we have to offer too, to be honest.
Keep it real, support the local heroes, we need you, you need us, so let's get together.
Don't forget, we are home next Saturday, and who really wants to go Christmas shopping anyway?
Bill Flynn
Chairman
Comments