Hi all, I hope you are all doing well and coping with what can only be described as an unusual Christmas period. I would imagine that only those that survived Christmas during the Blitz would have experienced anything like this, Kendo what was it like? I doubt even Her Mag would know what the Latin is for this horrible year but we have got this far and there is light at the end of the tunnel so even if, like me, your Christmas plans are not what you expected lets hope that taking this sacrifice now means that we can all have many more family and friend Christmases together in the future.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank a lot of people that have helped to get the club through the last year. Despite the lack of opening and half a season we are in a very good place both on and off the field and it is due to all the hard work put in by the Committee, the captains, players, mums and dads that we still strong. \So thank you all.
Clubhouse, although sadly empty, is looking great as are the new and loos! On the pitch we had a "full" half season of cricket and Jimmy and James should take great credit in making that happen in such a short space of time. All teams did well in their various leagues or friendlies and the young future stars of the club reaching the Matchplay final (and performing very well on the day). The support for all teams given the restrictions in place was fab and I am told nearly 150 of you went to watch the lads final game! So thanks to you all for your help on and off the pitch. My personal highlight was skippering (and umpiring) through the whole innings of young Aarav's maiden senior century, but everyone one of you deserves a pat on the back.
Extra big thanks to our very own Marcus Rashford, James Clark. Clarky came to me with his ideas to give something back to the local community twice this year. The first was our Easter Egg collection which raised over 160 eggs for the local health workers, and more recently the brilliant Food Bank collection which raised in excess of 500 food items for local struggling families. Brilliant effort from all those that contributed and to James for his ideas and social spirit. I have attached a picture of about 75% of what we gathered for the foodbank, we got even more after!
I hope you all have a very happy, healthy and peaceful Christmas whatever you are doing. I also hope that 2021 is much better than 2020, Arsenal cant be this bad again!
See you soon!
Paul