Sittingbourne v East Grinstead Town 19th Feb 2019 - Match Day programme

The Secretary’s Jottings
Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Woodstock Park.
Welcome to our visitors from Sussex, East Grinstead Town. A welcome also to this afternoon’s
match officials, the referee, Jamaal Horne from Thornton Heath and his assistants,
Stephen Mathews from Redhill and Carl Smith from Dorking.
Our last scheduled match away at Three Bridges was of course postponed because of a waterlogged
pitch. The rearranged date for this is Tuesday 26 th February. I was surprised that not
more matches were postponed last Saturday. I would think that after the torrential rain we had
around that time that there are going to be a number of pitches out there that are the worse for
wear. Roger, our groundsman and Vice chairman, Ken, have worked hard on our pitch to get it
back to a reasonable condition after the Ashford match. I was amazed at the pictures of the
Newport County pitch after their FA Cup tie against Middlesbrough. It looked like a ploughed
field with hardly a blade of grass anywhere to be seen.
I am sure that the supporters will have appreciated the performances under our new manager,
Chris Lynch. The performance at home to Ashford was first class. We were very unlucky not
to get anything out of a game against a team that, in my opinion, are the best team we have
played this season. Chris continues to add new players to the squad and today we welcome
Tom Lawrence who has signed for us from Tunbridge Wells. Chris has also announced that
Nathan Elder has being promoted to Assistant manager. Welcome to Tom and congratulations
to Nathan
Our new dressing rooms are taking
shape with the internal walls all done
as well as much of the plumbing and
electrics. The refurbished building will
also have a manager’s office, a physio
room and a medical room. Thanks to
Greg McHardy for all the hard work he
and his men are putting into the project.
We have also been awarded a further
amount of money from Swale
Councillor Derek Conway’s budget to
help with the cost of the electrical
works. This is the second award given to us by Councillor Conway. Last year he gave a contribution
to the main structural works in the new dressing rooms.
In the next few weeks you will see more work being done around the ground that will include a
tidy up of the area both sides of the main stand. We will also be looking for volunteers to do
decorating in the new dressing rooms. Volunteers are also required to keep the motorway
Bridge and Forum Car Park signs up to date!
Next up for us are two away games. Next Saturday we visit VCD, hoping to get revenge for
our unlucky defeat to them recently. The following Tuesday its our rescheduled visit to Three
Bridges. Our next home match is on Saturday 2 nd March against Faversham Town.
Enjoy the game!
John