FIXTURES
There has been no correspondence this week from either the Southern League or the FA regarding the outcome of the 2020/21 season. We were warned the decision would not come immediately.

We have been busy completing the necessary paperwork to make our claim to the government’s Winter Survival Fund. This is an £11 million fund which is available to the 850 clubs at step’s 3 to 6 in the form of grants rather than loans.

ACADEMY UPDATE BY MICHAEL JONES
Since we have returned to online lessons/sessions this year, we have been running a learner of the week award. This has been used as motivation for all players to still achieve the high standards expected of them both in educational lessons and coaching sessions. The award is given to a player who has been dedicated to improve both academically and physically during these difficult times. Learner of the week will also receive a prize, this is in the form of training kit donated from our partner Pro:Direct.

Please see a list of winners so far: Matthew Morton, Flavius Drescanu, Rocca Lewin-Wren, well done to all of you, keep up the excellent work.

If you are interested in being part of our academy then please register your interest here.

NEWS OF EX CANARIES
Last Saturday Kane Smith scored for Boreham Wood in their 2-1 defeat by Eastleigh while Josh Coley scored the winning goal for Maidenhead at Halifax.

Dean Brennan departed his role as manager of National League side Wealdstone. He was in his second season there having won promotion from National League South. Incidentally Matt Lench rejoined Wealdstone in December 2020 having spent the first half of the 2018/19 season there.

JOHN FENELEY
I was sad to hear that John Feneley died recently. He was the kit man at St Albans from 2001 through to March 2020. He was a real character and was previously at Baldock. He would always have a word with me when we played St Albans and would often come to our Monday night games at Top Field. He was a real gentleman and typical of so many non-league stalwarts. He was a great friend of our ex physio Peter Prince. We send our condolences to John’s family.

FIXTURE BOARD
As there are no fixtures to display on our fixture board in Bedford Road, Geoff Thomason has decided to put some alternative messages up which he will change on a regular basis. The first one remembers a game with Clevedon from January 2009.

LOCKDOWN WITH DONNERS
I spoke to Brett Donnelly to see how he was coping with the current lockdown and the answer was not very well. As he said he has spent the last 20 years with his weeks very structured by football with training twice a week (or a midweek game and training) and a game on Saturday. Now he has been deprived of this and Monday to Friday he goes to work, has his meal and eventually goes to bed while on weekends he goes for a run and watches some football on TV that he finds hard to enjoy and goes to bed. He finds Saturdays particularly hard and can you believe he told me he has only had one beer in this lockdown? Motivation is difficult.

He says that as the weeks have gone by there is less interaction with the players and less banter as there is not much to talk about. Brett admits he is struggling to cope without his football and is very frustrated. Indeed he told me his running times have improved so much he is thinking of making a comeback.

To help him keep sane I have asked him to produce a lockdown blog and he readily agreed to do this. It will go online in the near future.

ADAM PARKER
Parks is proving quite elusive as I try to pin him down to be interviewed. I will not give up and I know it will be worth the wait as he has some great stories to tell about his career.

BY ROY IZZARD