The friendly fixture in July with the Manchester United Legends is a massive event for the club. The response has been overwhelming. 1350 tickets sold and almost all sponsorship opportunities taken up. Obviously the aim is to begin next season with a financial success. However, the Board’s intentions are more ambitious than just making a few bob!

The aim is to remind some and inform others that Glossop North End has an amazing history. It is a grand plan to galvanise the Glossopdale community to be more aware of the club’s existence, to be proud of its history, and to join the club’s core supporters to build a bright future. The Board hope that the friendly – and the joint work with Glossop Heritage to mark the Football League glory days – will lead to an increase in attendance at GNE’s home games. It is a very good moment to launch this initiative at a time when attendances at non-league games are increasing nationally.

In that context, what is the current position of our football club? Here the Programme Editor will express some personal views. Here goes.

It is 10 years since the glory season of 2014-15 - NWCFL champions, League Cup winners and FC Vase finalists. After reaching the Step 4 play offs in our first season in the NPL, that team started to break up. We made some unfortunate managerial appointments and in 2018-19 we just escaped relegation after a terrible start to the season. We were then forced to transfer to the East Division which made life very difficult. Those two years were wiped out by Covid but they hit the club hard financially and in player recruitment. Pete Band did a good job and built a decent young team but departed for Macclesfield. Back in the West Division, Stuart Mellish had a decent first season and again put together a promising young team. His second season started very well - top after three games! In early November we were still comfortable in 11th place. He then seemed to lose confidence in his own players and we fell down the table. I remember both Runcorn Linnets and Workington saying in their match reports that we were too good to go down. I actually believe that old cliche was true! We should never have been relegated but three wins in the last five games could not make up for some bad losses earlier.

A number of fans were convinced that we would flourish at Step Five and there was talk of immediate promotion. I never shared that view and kept pointing out that almost all teams relegated from Step Four in the last decade struggled badly - and many still do. Skelmersdale, New Mills, Colne, Burscough, Market Drayton, Tadcaster Albion, Frickley Athletic, Goole, Harrogate Railway Athletic, Yorkshire Amateur all come to mind. It has taken 10 years for Padiham to challenge again. Ramsbottom have had new money to account for their rise this season.

After a dreadful start to last season, we managed to avoid relegation and slowly Brodie put a team together. My view is that this season - again after a poor start - shows that we have stopped the rot and stabilised the club. Last Saturday night I thought we looked like a team who could compete with the best at this level. With Abdul and Conor available, we may well have got something from the game. Therefore, I think we can now look upwards for the first time in six years.

Everything depends on whether we can keep all or most of the current team together. Again it is a young team and we are all fed up with seeing our ex-players go on to do well at other clubs when we have developed them. With the huge boost of the Man United friendly we may well start the season with an increased attendance. A good start and we can raise the average attendance significantly. Consistency at home is obviously the key to that.

I would argue that the board’s initiative comes at exactly the right time to allow us cautious optimism about the future of our club. I hope I am right!