Hopefully it will also start to bring people back to the website as it always seems to play second fiddle to social media in the era of instant gratification for any event
Talking of the website I’ve recently updated all this years stats on it so go and check out the stats page if you want to, no doubt I’ve made some errors that you ultimate statos will spot, but the main things like goals and appearances should be correct! The squad list was only showing 4 players a week ago so that’s also had a bit of an update too

This week we traveled to Sholing in the SLPS. It was their manager Dave Diaper’s last and would you believe it 1210th game in charge. When you start to look into his record the more amazed you’ll be, he has a near 65% win record in those games and many managers at our level in non league find him an inspiration. Danny speaks very highly of him. Dave Diaper is basically Mr Sholing. The occasion with an on pitch presentation pre match was somewhat spoilt by some awful weather and perhaps that dented the crowd as he surely deserved a bigger turnout than the around 200 home fans. The bad weather nearly put the game in doubt with the classic sight of balls being rolled on the pitch to see if they stick being performed and many a wannabe groundsman pitching in their views. In the end though it went ahead and was a 3-3 thriller which you can read about in the match report. Conor McDonagh got his 10th league goal of the season in the game (15 over all for CMAC, in 17 games) and he is right up there in the race for the golden boot in the league. Away teams are still struggling to pronounce his name properly though, “McDowell” seems to be a favourite! I wonder how many goals he has to score before they start to get it right. Of course we are well used to that recently as Curtis ANGLE was an away day favourite for us.

For me the Sholing comeback capped off an horrendous afternoon of sport with England getting pumped in the cricket world cup and Everton getting “Craig Pawson’d” in the Merseyside derby. The cold and wet certainly didn’t help but at least it was only a short journey home and not one of those 3 hour trips back from Essex or Kent trips of last year. I usually poll around some fans to get a star man view but to avoid the sulk that was bound to be occurring along the A34! I plumped for Adulai Sambu in the end. He had a great first half scored a terrific goal and did some impressive game management too.

There was some sad news on Saturday with the passing of Sir Bobby Charlton. He was an icon of global sport and a true gentleman to go with it. For my parents generation he was simply the best player, I can still hear my Dad saying “oh but he can’t hit a shot as hard as Bobby Charlton” if I was talking about a player or a goal. On a global scale Charlton playing for England was probably like when Beckham played for England for my generation (albeit Sir Bobby is a far better player) but without all the showbiz side going with him, he had a global impact and every football fan knew about hm. I hope we get another statue at Wembley so we get the two Bobby’s Charlton & Moore at the home of English football.

In Hungerford player news Nathan Davis has left us to return to Corsham. Announcing player departures is always somewhat tricky as a lot depends on the departing player and there are things like kit and admin to be taken into account. Nathan was struggling to hold down a starting position so has moved on and we wish him well in the future certainly a player to keep your eye on. Matt Berry-Hargreaves has reached 100 games recently. It’s probably a few over that number as there is some debate about sub appearances in his early days at the club. Hungerford Town through and through though is MBH and we’ve seen him grow into the player he is today. He’s been unlucky this season with a couple of shocking red card decisions that has meant him being in and out of the side early season but has started to pick up in form over recent weeks, no doubt though he is missing his old mate George Smith in the starting XI and I think George is “stuck” on 99 appearances too!

The Poole Town match is tomorrow night as I write this. Can we keep up our unbeaten home form? Make sure you are there to find out, it's always a lively game with little love lost between the teams. Poole do have a good away following though so expect some noise from them. On Saturday we travel to Westfield, no lads not the shopping mall don't worry, they are a team based in Woking and play in the trophy. It should be a fun away day it would be great to get a cup run going like last seasons run in that competition.

As always at Hungerford Town there is more going on than football. Just this coming week alone we see the second week of the pool league, although sadly for the “A team” they are going to have to wait another week for my debut this season. The monthly quiz is Thursday night, my team seems to be stuck in mid table finishes lately. And a couple of Halloween parties at the weekend, I am going as a plastic pitch, it’s the scariest thing you can see as a Hungerford fan. Make sure you support the quiz or the Halloween party if you can, the great thing about this club is we all work together to improve both on and off the pitch

I will try to do one of these articles a week to give you an insight into all things HTFC and up the website traffic Will we beat Poole & Westfield, will my quiz team perform better, is everyone be scared of a plastic pitch? Find out at some point next week!

Have a great week Crusaders

Martyn