President's view

  From our club President, Albert Panting.

Most of you will probably be aware that our Chairman Nick O’Keeffe has decided to resign his position with the Club.

His decision did not come as a surprise to me, but nether the less it is something that is difficult to come to terms with. When around seven years ago Nick, along with Barry Stokley and Mark Lee, took on the responsibility of trying to get the Club back on an even keel I was particularly pleased.

Nick and Barry played for the Club, with me as their manager, when they were young teenagers and it seemed the right thing to me that they took over the reins.

They both had boys who were playing for the Club and it meant that we could go forward with people whose hearts were in the Club. For me to say that the boys that I managed in those days made life easy for me would be far from the truth. On one hand you had me the disciplinarian and on the other we had the Thamesmead boys constantly giving me grief, never making my life easy. That, by the way hasn’t changed, as I still seem to be the butt of their humour at every opportunity that presents itself.

When you have to get around 15 teenage boys to grounds with only one car you can only begin to imagine what it was like. But I can honestly say that we did have a lot of good times and I am sure that Nick will remember, with fondness, those days, particularly our trips to Germany. I certainly do. Those days, for me, were the good times and Nick was a big part of that, so you can maybe understand a little my feelings today.

I could write so much about the past, but you would soon get bored. I know that Nick’s work commitments do prevent him from watching the Mead as often as he would want, but he is still a big part of the Club and will continue to support us in any way that he can. So from the bottom of my heart thanks Nick for everything that you have done for helping to get us to where we are today.

Last Wednesdays London FA cup match gave Keith the opportunity to change things a bit and it was good to see us playing football.

We were stringing passes around and looked like we were enjoying ourselves, which is much more like the Thamesmead that we all know and love to watch.

It was particularly good to have Pedro back and to see James Brown showing signs of his normal form. We deservedly won the game after a great tackle by Peter Smith started a slick move, which Curtis finished off with superb determination and I am sure this will give the whole squad some much needed confidence. Well done boys, particularly the youngsters who credited themselves well.

Next match at Bayliss Avenue

    Ryman League North

Thamesmead Town

Vs

  Ware

  Saturday 4th Sep 2010

K.O. 3:00PM