Monday 10th March 2014 Welcome to the latest Club update. Finally the weather has relented so there is much to report about our on the field activities this week. A simple summary would read - Played 3 Won 2 Drawn 1 For 12 Against 4. This all looks very promising. Unfortunately, the 4-4 draw with Hartley Wintney meant that we dropped further points in our pursuit of South Park and in fact Camberley now sit four points ahead of us with a better goal difference too. On the credit side, we moved up to third place on Saturday with a comfortable 4-0 win over Colliers Wood United. We also defeated the Old Hamptonians 4-0 on Tuesday evening, and it must be said that the visitors deserved a lot of credit, holding us for around 70 minutes before they fell away. Some people said it was because our greater fitness shone through, but why should this be the case? We play or train three times a week, but it's quite possible that the Amateur Football Combination side also do this and as Old Boys of the Hampton School they may even have better facilities than our own. We just stepped up our own game. However, it was an easy assumption to make, in the same way that the "plucky non-league team of butchers, bakers and candlestick makers" are patronised by the National media because they don't know their subject. This was illustrated to me on Thursday when a Club Official who shall remain nameless remarked that we will surely be playing Walton Casuals in the Semi-Final of the Southern Combination Cup. The person concerned knew nothing about Spelthorne Sports and just assumed that because of the two step difference that it was a foregone conclusion. Spelthorne I might add are unbeaten in ALL competitions this season and will become League opponents next term. We may even meet them twice this season in Semi-Finals if the draws play out that way, as they are the likely obstacle we shall face should we overcome Chessington or Wembley in the League Cup Quarter Final. Anyway, onto Thursday's game at Hartley Wintney, where we suffered another slow start, only to register three goals in three minutes right on half time. However, we couldn't hold the lead and despite going back in front we were reined in once again and had to settle for the draw. For what it's worth I think this was just one of those freak results. It wasn't down to tiredness as we bossed the second half of the match and in addition, on Saturday we recorded a clinical 4-0 victory over Colliers Wood United; a team that had won at Westfield seven days previously and had no competitive midweek matches. However, we were on top from the start and it turned into a comfortable afternoon's work in the end. So what now? Well, any League aspirations we have could be snuffed out with a negative result on Tuesday at South Park. They edged past Ash on Saturday, but I can't help thinking that they may even have rested players so they were fresh for the match with us. We will meet a South Park team that is fully fit and in fine form, so we will have to be at our best to get the win we need. Having said that, if any team can beat South Park, it is us, and with five wins and a draw from our six meetings so far, it will be interesting to see whether their style of play changes in any way, as we obviously seem to match up well against them. So far, anyway! Following this we face another trip to the same neck of the woods when we visit Horley Town on Saturday; another venue where we have an excellent record. We have only lost two matches ever against Horley, but it must be said that Kyle Hough was in the Horley line up on both of those occasions and will be again, so we will need to be careful against the team currently propping up the table. One final word on our programme this week. No, not that word! although I have previously reported on the club's insult to its supporters by a stubborn refusal to lower the price from £2, despite being just 20 pages in size compared to last season's award winning issues, and having a complete lack of interesting articles. It might have more colour (which costs the club more, by the way), but doesn't have any "colour" at all, if you know what I mean. I shall be completing a Programme Review in the near future, by the way, where credit will be given to teams that have made an effort to go above and beyond the routine tables, fixtures and random "action" pictures of players standing in a field. Anyway, full credit goes to Glynn Mandeville who has taken over the playing Management update and is providing a real insight into how things work "behind the dressing room door". I have been pushing for many years to get the club to involve its supporters more by way of information, hence this website, and Glynn is now doing that excellently. These programme articles are now being replicated on this website, so if you don't get the chance to buy a programme, don't worry, as anything of interest will be available right here. Come on you Salts!