ONLINE 50/50 DRAW
Many congratulations to Anthony Brown who won the latest 50/50 draw that was held live on Wednesday. He won £366.40, and the same amount went to Hitchin Town FC with £183.20 going to the East & North Hertfordshire Hospitals Charity. We have now held three online 50/50 draws which so far have raised £1,344.40 for the Club and £672.20 for the NHS Charity so many thanks for your continued support and to our social media team for running the draws so professionally.

Anthony is a very worthy winner as he is a regular Hitchin Town supporter and the main contributor to the History Today section of the Fan’s Forum. Anthony came to Top Field for the first time in 1969. At the time he was a Luton Town supporter and he came to watch them play Hitchin in a friendly. When a number of Luton Town players who Anthony had watched playing for their reserves started to join Hitchin he would come and watch them. He would watch Luton where he was a season ticket holder and Hitchin if Luton were away. From 1990 Anthony become a full time Hitchin supporter and has been coming to Top Field ever since from his home in Offley.

Mark Burke is Anthony’s favourite player but he also named John Frendo, Dave Deeney and Alan West as other Hitchin players he admired. Anthony was really surprised to win the 50/50 draw and urges all supporters to support future draws as it helps the club, the NHS and offers the chance of winning a substantial prize.

HITCHIN RETRO
We have come up with a new idea to raise money for the club. We are going to show games from our past to help fill the void created by the Coronavirus pandemic.

“Tickets” are now on sale for fans to view the screening of our first Hitchin Retro game. This first game will be the Season 1993-94 Diadora Isthmian League Premier Division clash between Enfield and Hitchin Town, played at Enfield’s Southbury Road ground on Tuesday 28th September 1993.

The game will be made available to view from 19:00 onwards on Tuesday 16th June, and the “tickets”, costing £5 for all Adults and £2 for Teenagers, will be on sale up until 19:00 on the day when the screening will be available.

We hope that fans will get behind this new venture, as we have a number of classic retro games for future screening, including all of the FA Cup classics from the 1990s. Our first game features a dodgy centre back in the No.4 shirt in the Hitchin team – well worth the “admission” money on its own!

“Tickets” can be bought by clicking here.

Details of future games to be shown as part of Hitchin Retro will be announced at a later date.

GROUND REPORT BY STEVE BARKER
This week we again gave the turf another trim after the heat we’ve had recently.

We are trying to get the roots to go deep and looking for water rather than watering too much and getting shallow rooting which would mean divots would come out easily causing alot of problems maintaining a good surface whenever we play again.

I’m hoping for some decent rain soon as it’s better for the grass than mains water.

Work has commenced to replace the broken section of fence to the left of the main stand which will tidy up that corner of the ground and should be completed next weekend. Please note that social distancing is observed.

I would like to thank Allan Johnson who has agreed to do the repairs when needed on our mowers free of labour charge. He has repaired one cutting deck, fitting new bearings while the drive belt was replaced with blades sharpened. He said he would pay for the parts as a donation to the club.

STEVE KIMBERLEY UPDATE
I spoke to Steve the joint manager of our social club on Thursday and the good news is that he now feels he is back to normal health. He went for a long walk and felt no after effects and his breathing is now normal. At last he seems to have fully recovered from the Coronavirus and is looking forward to returning to work when government regulations allow.

MARK BURKE CHRONICLES PART THREE
The third instalment of Mark’s Chronicles is now available here.

COLLEGE PROGRAMME
The students did have their question and answer session with Ben Wilmot this week. Ben is the son of our ex goalkeeper Richard and is currently on loan at Swansea from Watford.

THE COMET
I would like to thank the Comet for their coverage of the club since the Coronavirus outbreak. They have been publishing all the main stories I have sent them and it is much appreciated as it keeping the club at the forefront of local sports news.

BY ROY IZZARD