I’m a bit disappointed that the window has finally closed, because the Aga belts out the heat and my kitchen has been boiling, so I really needed the fresh air...however, there’s a window I am pleased is now closed - the transfer window - and it was great to see some very late business bring in another hungry, young, yet experienced and talented player in Kyle Taylor. It would take too long to run through the signings that have been made, but at this point there are 13 new faces, 10 of which are permanent, and three of which are on loan. It’s been something of a challenging start to the season and the squad has suffered massively, as I am sure you are well aware, with covid and injuries. We’ve got Archie and Jack, both very talented academy boys, still unable to play, with Jack out possibly for a couple of months; so there was a need to strengthen the squad to overcome those setbacks and then throw in a couple of positive covid cases just to make life really difficult!
One really pleasing thing to see is, that while we lost one talent – Joel Randall – at what we believe was the right price, another huge talent - Josh Key - has shown huge faith in the club and manager to stay with the us. I know his faith will be rewarded as his form improves on a game-to-game basis and it was fantastic to see him score and get us an incredible draw with 10 men against Harrogate. Everyone knows I can bore the hind legs off a donkey talking about the academy, but Harry Kite’s goal against Bradford and then his sending off against Harrogate just shows the ups and downs and the learning curve these boys go through. Harry will come back fitter, stronger and wiser and we look forward to his return.
There was some serious heat in another kitchen, last week, down at the RGB Roomworks kitchen, where our lads achieved what was probably the most important result so far this season – thrashing the Exeter Chiefs boys in our version of Bake Off as part of Ben Moon’s testimonial year. Our boys, led by Matt Jay, proved to be skilled in the kitchen and Jack Knowles, the competitor that he is, was not best pleased when George Ray’s baking efforts proved to be superior. They are all talented athletes and are competitive by nature, whatever shape ball they use! A great evening was had by all thanks to our tremendous sponsors RGB. Listen, it’s not for me, and I have no idea why you need all these baking programmes when you’ve got a microwave - and apparently the Aga does something, but I’m not sure what, apart from overheat the kitchen and boil the kettle…
We held Forest Green Rovers to a nil-nil draw at home on Saturday. We’ve already had three big games and a couple of them with crowds of over 5,000. We’re still falling a bit short of our target of 6,000, so we’d love to see you at a game! Project 6000 is a big deal at the club, and whilst the academy does great stuff, we need to make our club self sufficient and the increase in fans will be hugely significant. As we’ve been talking about cake baking, as Delia would say - and I know I will go down in flames for this - ‘let’s be having ya’!
It was good to see our Under-23’s beat Plymouth Argyle at Home Park last week in the Premier League Cup, and even better to see a couple of goals for Ben Seymour. The squad now progresses to the group stages of the cup and will play Wolves, Swansea and West Ham, so keep an eye on their progress, there’s some serious talent in that team.
Up the City!
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