Good Evening and welcome to Westleigh Park.

On behalf of the Management Team, we welcome Hemel Hempstead Town, Manager Bradley Quinton, his Staff, Players, Committee Members and Supporters to the club for this important fixture. We hope that you enjoy your visit (not too much though!) and have a safe trip home!

Looking back to the week before the Dover game, it was a bit of a turbulent week at the club with Steve King and his Assistant being relieved of their duties just a day before the bottom of the table clash. Much to the relief of players, staff and supporters! Cliff, Ross and myself were asked on Friday afternoon to take charge of First Team matters in the interim. We then proceeded to pick a team with players playing in their rightful positions and in a formation that the players were comfortable in playing. We told the players to go out and express themselves in a positive manner and to enjoy the game…. Something that hasn’t been happening for a little while. Scoring four goals in the game was a massive plus point for us – something that hasn’t been done for a long time. The only concern was conceding three goals, but we got the result we all wanted, and personally believe the 4-3 scoreline flattered Dover.

We can take plenty of positives from the game, we are very much at the stage of “work in progress“, but even in 24 hours, there was signs of positive improvement in the morale of the squad. There was also clear delight from Ross Betteridge in that one of his corner routines shown to players just before kick off resulted in the 4th goal against Dover! There are a number of constructive development points that have been worked on in training in the past 11 days.

I have to give credit to Cliff for the huge amount of positive energy expressed from the touchline. This then leads me to thank the players for their energy and professionalism in the last game, and would like to thank the supporters for the way they reacted. Seeing the flags, hearing constant singing and cheering on the players was fantastic, and please trust me when I say it helped the team immensely!

Lastly, we don’t know how long we will be in interim charge of the team, but can assure you all that while in charge, we are 100% committed to getting the club away from the relegation zone… or as I would normally say, out of the S@~t!!!

Up the Hawks!

Rich (with Cliff and Ross)