Good afternoon everybody and a warm welcome to the staff, players and supporters of March Town for today’s fixture at Plantation Park.

Both sides will be looking to get their first league win of the season and we anticipate a hard fought game. Haydn Davis is available for selection again today after a hamstring problem and Shaun Wones finally returns to first team duty after his 4 game suspension has now been served.

Last Saturday saw us progress in the FA Cup with a well deserved victory over Long Buckby AFC. The players were pleased to get our first win and we were certainly pleased with the quality of our second half performance in particular.

Max Melanson got off the mark with his first goal for the club, which we all hope will be the first of many. We are so pleased to bring Max to the club from Thetford as we have been admirers of his for a long time. Max has good technical ability and adds quality to our midfield with his movement, passing and dead ball delivery. We’ve challenged Max to make the box regularly in open play and contribute with goals for the team, which he’s keen to do.

Our U21’s got off to a fantastic start this week with a 2-0 win over Martham, in front of an excellent crowd of over 150. The only disappointment being we couldn’t host the game at Plantation Park due to a continuing floodlight issue. It was useful to see the continual development of some of our promising young players and we were able to compliment the squad with some senior players in need of game time. We will always continue to do this as a club as our aim remains to develop talent, whilst remaining as competitive as possible. It’s great that former Norwich United player Adrian Ager has returned to the club to add his experience as a member of staff, assisting with that age group.

This week saw the greatest player in the world (no not Liam Jackson!) Lionel Messi leave his boyhood club after 16 years of professional service. I couldn’t help thinking, as he sobbed to the Catalonian faithful of his desire to stay, did at any point he not just consider playing for less money for the final 2 years of his career? Maybe I’m growing cynical, but less than 24 hours later a deal had been struck with PSG for a meagre €1,000,000 a week, So I’m guessing that if the thought had crossed his or his agents mind, it didn’t hang around for long!

Enjoy the Game, UTP

Steve Eastaugh
Norwich United Manager