Chelmsford City

Football seasons come and go but some things never change, and the ambitions Chelmsford City FC have in pushing themselves up the football pyramid in a sustainable fashion are as prominent as ever, although chairman Mansell Wallace admits: “Short of arranging for Ronaldo to come and play for us, the best thing our supporters can do is encourage more new fans through the turnstiles!”

City narrowly missed out on promotion to the top tier of the non-league game in 2009/10 and Mansell has spoken of the withdrawal symptoms he has suffered after weeks without football at Melbourne, although the World Cup has kept him partly occupied before the new Blue Square Bet South campaign kicks into life in August.

The club now focuses on doing what it can to make sure it’s third time lucky for Glenn Pennyfather’s squad in their renewed bid to bring premier football to the county town. Wallace expressed: “Pre-season training begins in July and everyone is raring to go already. We’re arranging friendlies and season ticket sales are very promising.”

He is looking forward to seeing Glenn build on the progress of his young side next season and claims “We’re as ready for promotion as we will ever be!” He is certain the ambition of the club can be matched on the field in 2010/11 by Pennyfather while dialogue continues between the Board of Directors and Chelmsford Borough Council to ensure present and future upgrades at Melbourne Stadium remain on course.

“Glenn is one year into a two-year programme so he’s half-way through the job and we look forward to witnessing what he can do next season. He’s always been of the opinion that he will only bring players in that are better than what he’s got. Apart from Ricky Holmes, all the other players on our retained list will be staying with us for next season and all the others, except for Ollie Berquez, have been invited back for pre-season.”

Moves were also made to assure supporters that the release of popular forward Holmes was in everyone’s best interests. He said: “There may be comings and goings before our first game but there’s no point signing players in a rush as you’ll have to pay the premium price for them. That said, our resources are fluid and if we have extra money coming in that we haven’t budgeted for we can increase them. We need the people of Chelmsford to support City so we can build the crowds that lead to a bigger budget.”

Preparations for 2010/11 got underway after the release of the player retained list for the head coach to build on. He will keep at least seven of his current successful squad for next season, including reigning Young Player of the Year Mark Haines in defence. Amongst the midfielders who will remain are John Martin, Dave Rainford, Matt Lock, Anthony Cook and Ricky Modeste while Rob Edmans will fight for a place up-front.

Aside from the release of long-serving midfielder Ollie Berquez and the culmination of striker Warren McBean’s loan from Bromley, the rest of the squad have been invited back to pre-season training as Glenn aims to finish as high in the Blue Square Bet South table as possible following last season’s near miss in the play-offs against Bath City.

In terms of newcomers, he fended-off competition from several clubs to complete the signing of prolific goal scorer Sam Higgins, the leading marksman at East Thurrock United last year. Higgins gained his early experience in the game within the youth set-ups at Millwall and Southend United from 2007/08 and set the Ryman League Division One North alight last season as the division’s top scorer. The Rocks missed out on promotion but Glenn is convinced the 19-year-old deserves his chance at a higher level.

City are also building their pre-season programme after former Premier League outfit Bradford City confirmed they will bring a strong side down from Yorkshire to face the Clarets on Saturday 24th July at 3:00pm. Peter Taylor’s Coca-Cola Football League Two squad, who finished in mid-table with an average crowd of over 11,000, will bring their First Team to Melbourne as part of a tour of the region.
 

www.chelmsfordcityfc.com

Images courtesy of Matt Bradshaw
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