As we get closer to the competitive part of the season, I wanted to take the opportunity to look at how we have prepared over the past couple of months.  I glad to say that most of what I see is very positive; training is well attended (but still room for many more!), we have a very enthusiastic set of captains who are all working hard behind the scenes and all of whom are looking forward to the season and optomistic about their prospects and we have had our most comprehensive set of pre-season friendlies for some time including a number of inter-club games (for which many thanks Brackers).  At a glance, some would say pre-season results have been mixed, and perhaps disappointing, but that may be how far we have come in recent years.  The reports back are that we have played well in most games and in fact we have set ourselves against stiff opposition who will play in higher divisions than us, so don't pay too much attention to the scorelines, we can all do that when the competitve games come and it really matters.

On Saturday, I went to watch our 8th team at Old Wilsonians.  As I don't have any captaincy responsibilities this year I am looking to spend at least one dedicated Saturday with every side this season, and so I started with the 8's.  A game in difficult conditions, our 8's were 1-0 down at half time before a storming 2nd half performance saw them bounce back to become 4-1 winners.  So what did I (and hopefuly they) learn. Well, in the 1st half there was a lot of high and long balls which simply didn't help us and a second half dominated by short pass and move more than helped our cause and was very pleasing on the eye.  It helped that Wisonians appeared to wilt more than us in the later stages of the game, although even the 8th team would agree that fitness is possibly not quite there yet.  It was good to see that most of the lads stayed afterwards and team spirit in the bar was certainly as strong as it had been on the pitch.  So an enjoyable afternoon made even better with reports of victories and strong performances from both our 1's and 5's - well done to all.

So, a promising start, but lets not get carried away.  We really need to ensure we are fully prepared for the start of the season as titles can be won and lost in the first few games.  I would therefore urge you all to make an effort to get to those last couple of training sessions and ensure we are as ready as we can be when the competitive season eventually kicks off.  I am really looking forward to the coming season, and hope that you are too, so lets make sure that we are ready and start as we mean to go on.

Steve Martin-Lawrence, Chairman