Good evening and welcome to the Hangar for the final time this season. It’s the end of most probably the toughest season in the club’s recent history. Looking back to the summer and the excitement Slava held with the team he had signed it’s hard to believe what’s happened between then and now.
All credit must go to Craig Moran and his players. To be able to retain players of the calibre of Mindy, Ales, Lacky and Matty T while some other clubs thought it was open season on our roster was huge! Bringing in Kamil Tvrdek was an inspired signing. Here’s a guy who was on fire all last season with MK, who was smouldering in Bracknell and who is burning bright again now at the Hangar and scoring some brilliant goals.
Craig has made some great signings, some players ready for EPL right now, like Joe Myers, Jamie Line, Andrius Kaminskas and bringing up JJ full time. There’s some great prospects as well that have come together with the core of Slava’s team that we retained and have played with pride and passion, representing the red, white and blue with their hearts and souls. The results haven’t come often enough to ensure play-off qualification but that’s not through lack of effort or intensity.
As it’s the last game of the season I would of course like to extend some thanks. Starting with my right hand man, Richard, Vic on the clock, JG in the box, Steve Brown and Sean Eckett our starting goal judges and the key spares that have stepped in to cover these tasks, Simon, Jerrika and Timo. Thanks also to Lee and Lewis our photography twins, to John Miles, fish finger and Jets TV supremo, Ben Colyer and Simon Maher who have filmed for us as well as Aaran and Timo again.
In all seriousness Steve English deserves more thanks than he ever gets. There is so much he does that happens behind the scenes, so much stress, organisation and worry and pretty soon he’ll have a hair style entirely identical to mine with all of that I’m sure!
Thanks also to everyone who has done something to make this season that little bit better. By that of course I mean Tommo, Don and Brenda, Karen, Tammy, Jo for the Coventry organisation, the Whipp family for the Supporters shop, Kelly and the army of others who go about their business silently.
This season our average attendance has been again less than I’d hoped which is sad. I suppose you could say understandable given what’s happened but ironically it’s been since the mid-season upheaval that the figure has headed upwards. As a family we have seen through this tough season and there’s Coventry to look forward to which I’m sure doesn’t have quite the same attraction as a guaranteed neutral and then the End of Season evening. I have some ideas for some social events over the summer which hopefully we will be able to arrange to keep in touch with everyone and let’s hope when 2014/15 starts all the lows of this season become the foundation to build great things in the future and be back challenging again.
Thank you to all of you for another season of support, a chance to rest your voices, recover your hands from the clapping and spend your Saturday nights sitting without being on the edge of a seat!
You may think I’m crazy in saying this but please grab a ticket for the End of Season celebration night. We haven’t won the treble, we didn’t make the play-offs or the cup-final but boy do we have something proud to celebrate this season and I think the guys deserve your attendance to say a final thank-you before the team disbands for the summer.
The good news for us and for the league is that amongst huge speculation at the start of 2014 Zoran took the time to speak out in Powerplay and confirm all the rumours of our demise were exaggerated and that we will be back competitive in the EPL next season. On that happy note we can end this year, proud of what we’ve achieved in difficult times and look forward to more successful times again starting soon.
Enjoy your summer but most importantly for one last time this season enjoy the game.
My team, your team, OUR TEAM
Mark
