Boris Island 1 - 2 Ryanair

On a night when all but three of the 22 players who came out of the dressing rooms were stepping onto TOSCs hallowed turf for the first time, new look Chatham were undone by two sloppy moments of “defending” against Essex Senior League champions Stansted FC.

The only players in the starting line ups to my knowledge to have played here before were Matthew Solly, Brad Potter and a helpful Danny Ellis, deputising in goal for James Tedder. Lee Maskell later came off the bench and showed us glimpses what a great player he can be when fit – I like many others was surprised when he left us two years ago to join Vickers, but it seems that much like Ashley Probets before him, he has benefited from stepping away from expectation and become a better player. (Maskell was a pro at Ebbsfleet until his release in 2008)

It was a chance to see our new charges, but not our new manager, Paul Foley, absent on holiday. Its going to take ages to learn who everyone is. A few players really stood out, and as usual, in the early days its always the forwards who really catch the eye. Uche Ibemere looks superb – he can take on anyone and go round them, much like the departed Rob Denness, but unlike Mr Chatham ™, it appears Ibemere can cross the ball. Definitely one to look out for. He paired up well with Danny Penny, a man who is basically Lee Barnett in five years time. Penny, like Barnett, appears to all intents and purposes to be too fat and too slow to be any good. But his physical appearance is deceptive – he has all the flicks of Barnett and can smack it first time just as well as Mr B. He also has some pace about him – perhaps he’s not that big at all, and its just our figure hugging new kit that makes him look big.

Elsewhere, both wingers looked decent – Nick Hegley is clearly class and is the first player I’m going to use the word “contract” about. Other than that, there were so many positives last night Ryan Laker came off the bench, and even managed to showboat a bit with some dainty chipped passes. Its great news that Foley has kept such talent at the club, we simply mustn’t waste it a la Kedwell / Collin etc etc, and he becomes the second use of the word “contract”.

We are away to Hythe on Saturday, where we will undoubtedly concede five Brendon “Dirty Cash” Cass goals, before a run of home games against senior opposition.

The only concern I have is that we have no deputy for the injured James Tedder. Danny Ellis was “borrowed” from Faversham last night (the team also known as Chatham reserves), but the worry is that we’ve conceded 3 soft goals due to disorganisation in defence whilst Tedder is missing. Its very important that Tedder is fit again soon – yes, he knows his back four, but match practice is everything.

Road meets the sea 1 - 3 River rats

Chatham Town travelled to Herne Bay for their first pre-season friendly of the summer, and walked away from the Safety Net Stadium, Winch's Field 3-1 winners.

I was unable to attend due to a much more important family event, and I'm not usually a massive fan of pre-season matches anyway. I am though keen to see our new charges, but a glimpse at Herne Bay's official site already has some match photos on board.

According to their report, two of our three goals came from defensive lapses by Bay, but we have a pedigree of not capitalising on such things, so perhaps the new era is starting as it means to go on.

I mentioned photos - two of them are captioned, so we now know what Aaron Firth and skipper Danny Ward look like. We also rather comically now know what Jimmy Corbett looks like these days. Those of us with long memories will remember the Medway lad being a £525k signing for then Premier League big shots Blackburn Rovers back in 1998. He broke a leg soon after joining Rovers, and disappeared into the ether - his five years without an appearance at Blackburn were dotted with loans to Southend and Darlington. Anyway, apparently he's approaching full fitness. Maybe the picture on the Bay site isn't all that flattering, but I reckon he garnered a liking for meat and potato pies whilst in Lancashire.

http://hernebayfc.net/Herne%20Bay%20v%20Chatham%20Town.html

Sniping at megastars aside, its back to the reality of non-league footy next week. I don't like PSFs normally, as I mentioned. They only usually end in the disappointment of seeing a really good triallist that we can't afford, or the desperate sight of players on their way out of a club falling by the wayside. You just can't match a competitive game. But this Tuesday sees a first chance for fans and the intrigued alike to see the VCD side that finished 8th in the Ryman North last year under the re branded guise of Chatham Town FC. That sounds like I'm being a bit sarcy. I am. Genuinely, I welcome the new regime. The club's needed a good kick up the arse for a long time now, and we thought we were getting it last year. The impression that AOB was forced out by bad feeling in the dressing room / a lack of consistency / the club becoming an old boys network for ex Dartford players (to the point where Darts fans started coming to watch us when they had a chance) became all the stronger when you realise just how few players were an option to remain, and all of them were pre-OB - that is were at the club before O'Brien, or came through the youth ranks. The fact that there were only 8, and we used in excess of 25 players last year tells you how bad it was. Foley has brought with him a proven side who play for each other. We need a team like that - they've already bonded. I'd love to see Matt Solly fit in with it, and for that matter Brad Potter. Turns out that Ben Payne, Ashley Probets and Rob Denness will probably all leave. What happens with Richard Avery is yet to be seen. The youth wing of Michael Scott and Ryan Restell have a future at the club. Roll on Tuesday, 7.45pm - the visit of Essex Senior League champions Stansted, a side who should have gone up to our level but chose not to. I'm looking forward to the horror of trying to learn all of our new players names - as any of you who know me will testify, every game is spent waiting for me to confuse a player's name. Should be fun.

Come in number 7... you've got Ashford's fixtures.

That's certainly how it looks anyway. The big announcement is finally made - and it looks very much like we've been put straight into Ashford's shoes. The giveaway is that our "derby" games for Christmas and Easter are Eastbourne Town (the reprieved, shouldn't be in the league Eastbourne Town as some know them). They weren't exactly local to Ashford either, but expecting them to come to Medway on the 27th December is a bit silly - particularly when our obvious rivals, Sittingbourne, are away to Merstham!

The full fixtures are on the official site, with Chats opening the season at TOSC on Saturday 21st August 2010 against Corinthian Casuals. We then travel to Merstham on the Tuesday, before a cup trip to either Mole Valley SCR or Chertsey Town on the 28th. Our first Kent Derby is on the bank holiday Monday 30th August when we welcome old hands Ramsgate - who we must face away at Southwood on New Year's Day. That trip in fact will be our third to the coast in a month - we're away to Worthing and Brighton based Whitehawk on the 4th and 11th December respectively. The 'hawk match could be postponed if we get to the 1st round proper of the FA Trophy - I'd hate to miss a Saturday trip to Whitehawk. They're ground is unique, as this photo, stolen from someone else, shows - it just wouldn't work at night.

Note the crowd on the far side, standing on the hill. This ground meets standards. Our Luton End, doesn't - because of the trees. The words Ryman League Ground Graders and Farce do tend to go well, as our new manager Paul Foley would probably testify, but let's not focus on that.

Standout fixtures that might persuade me to go away from home for a game or two are Met Police on 30th October, simply for the floodlights.

Not of course for the song potential... that said, they'd have to wait for home games. I think any comments about Jean Charles de Menezes taking taxis etc would probably be better received somewhere other than the Met Police social club...

Another away trip that is very interesting is September 18th's journey to Bognor Regis Town. Late summer / early autumn trip to the coast - group save returns... could be interesting....

Full fixtures at http://www.chathamtownfc.net.

I'm off to watch Mastershout.

The South Will Rise Again...

Chatham are back in the Ryman 1 South. Its been announced today on the Ryman League's official site as a back end to a sad story about the possible demise of Ashford Town.

Ashford, plagued by boardroom rifts off the pitch and rumours of a debt close to a cool 1 million English pounds, have today tendered their resignation from the Isthmian League, and hope to be playing next season in the Kent League. If the Kent League will have them. That at least looks positive - the Kent League are so desperate for members (due to the success of member club's being promoted and not bouncing back down) that I wholly expect them to be "sworn in" like a disgraced US President at a Freemason's party.

This all follows on from the nonsense we had last week where Grays were "relegated" to the R1N having been initially accepted into the Ryman Premier. This left the northern section a club heavy - a problem that is now solved thanks to Ashford's misfortune.

Its also been reported today that Maidstone, tenants of Ashford Town, have been evicted from the Nuts and Bolts' Homelands stadium. Maidstone have met this with some incredulity - but the reasons cited by Ashford Town on their website do stand up to interrogation. It is appropriate to consider such a matter as failing to license the Sky TV that Maidstone had installed as a breach of the tenancy agreement in that Ashford as owners of the ground can probably expect to receive the fine. This leaves Maidstone potentially homeless. There is talk of them returning to Bourne Park, but it was very much a mooted point in the early summer that Stones' chair Paul Bowden Brown wanted to share at our very own TOSC. As we've already replaced Ashford in the league, it makes perfect sense for us to take on our now homeless neighbours from the county town. The fixtures simply need Ashford crossing through and Chatham replacing, and hey presto, no clashes with Maidstone. Simple enough really. All we have to do is ensure that we don't get screwed by it, and that the pitch holds up. And we have to hope that sense prevails at the league, who do not now expel Maidstone from the league for failing to have a ground share in place by deadline day (this has passed). Any such deal needs to be long term for the Ryman League - let's hope that the stupidity ends and that the non league scene in the south of England stops embarrassing itself.

The logical direction for this next paragraph is about irresponsible club owners not being limited to the professional ranks of the game - in fact, the number of non league clubs that have gone bust or taken enforced relegation this season is terrifying. Its not right to speculate about other owner's motives, but I am glad that Chatham Town are operated by a board who are first and foremost local football people, rather than big bucks businessmen. Long may it continue. I'd take a lifetime of mediocrity over anything that risks the club's future any day of the week.

Fixtures are now due out tomorrow. Which will now reunite us with Sittingbourne. Who've signed Rob Denness and Lee Barnett, if you believe the rumours. That has to be better than some attempt at Rivalry with Tilbury, surely?

Fixture inaction

We all thought that we'd be nearer an idea of exactly who we're playing and when next season by now, but the latest news has thrown everything back up in the air. To keep it brief, the meeting between the FA, the Ryman league and Grays Athletic resulted in Grays being placed in the Ryman 1 North, not the Ryman Premier as was expected. This means that the second tier of the Ryman now consists of 45 clubs, meaning at least one division will run with 23. If sense prevails, and often at this level it doesn't, we should be put back into a 23 club Ryman 1 South. We're due to find out over the weekend so that the fixtures can be arranged in the early part of next week.

The knock of of this is horrendous. We're four weeks from season start. Other leagues depend on these fixtures being out before they can arrange theirs. For example, Kent League Fisher groundshare with Dulwich. Dulwich's fixtures take priority, so Fisher can't have their games arranged until the Ryman mess is sorted.

Elsewhere, its been announced on the official site (after it was on McCartney) that Ben Payne is the latest to go to Erith Town, and that Ashley Probets is on trial at Dartford. Probets was player of the year (joint with Matt Solly) last term, but the step up to Connie South may be too much for him. Yes, he was two years a proffessional at Arsenal, and had a spell with Rochdale (he's the only Chat with football league pitch time), and he is easily capable of playing in the Conference again, but needs to make sure he learns not to switch off, which he can do sometimes - perhaps he'll be less prone to it in the atmosphere of the Princes Park Arena. And apparently Denness has gone to Sittingbourne - he should do well there and would do well to make that move.

Fixtures when I have them.

Chatham Town Welcomes Desperate Men

Yeah yeah yeah, its not the fixtures, but I just found this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aztulcg9ipM (embedding disabled... tut.)

I'd always thought I didn't like Billy Childish, but this is undeniably very good in a very pretentious way. I am particularly amused that he stands outside my old flat several times (well, probably actually just once - its the way its cut). In all seriousness, this about sums up how I often feel about Medway. Not the actual words (which, with delivery like this, work well), but the atmopshere it creates. A begrudging love for Medway in all its moribund depressed death twitching mollusc glory.

Pre-pre season thoughts... not all football.

Been a while - hello to you all.

We're at the time of year where I was about to get all excited about the release of the new season's fixtures, but instead I'm blogging about what I've been up to, things that have occurred to me and some other thoughts and follies. The reason? The Ryman League fixtures have been postponed - well, not the games, but the release of the actual fixture list. Its all due to the late inclusion of Grays Athletic, who, having had the good grace to mess about the whole league by appealing to be let into it, now appear to be going bust.

So instead of telling you all about how excited I am about perhaps going to the Cricklefield International Arena (home of both Ilford and Waltham Forest), I'm going to be pondering why you never hear the phrase "Pioneering Peadophile", the inadequacies of local government, and other things.

But having just mentioned the Cricklefield International Arena, Ilford, would be unfair not to show you it, wouldn't it?



Being an athletics ground, and with both home sides boasting massive attendances into double figures, it just like being at Juve in the 80s.... whatever happens, I'm going there at least once this season, if only to see both keepers have to run 30yards every time the ball goes out of play for a goal kick.

As soon as the fixtures are out, and I've had time to think about them, I'll be posting. I'm gagging to see some football, having missed most of the world cup due to Alpage, and the new team that Paul Foley has brought with him needs some inspection. I know naff all about most of them, apart from the fact that some of them come with big reputations (well, Nick Hegley is very much sought after and we're lucky to have him. Its generally accepted that his work keeps him from playing Conference football, so let's see if he's really that good eh?)

Anyway, I've not really been pondering the phrase about peadophiles. That's just weird. It has a nice ring to it, but that's about it.

I have been pondering the inadequacy of local government, but can't talk about it here in detail. Basically, it turns out that if you're a powerful elected representative of the people, you can abuse the rules, deny it, and then be cleared of any wrongdoing. When it goes to appeal, which this case did, it turns out you get cleared again, but with a list of recommendations that do everything but admit that you did infact break the rules... I may talk further about it on another blog, but I don't want to taint this one with a certain politician's name. This one is about something I really do like. "The Politician" as he is now called, is something I really do not.

Right - enough filler for now. Back with more news when I have it. You've been warned.