The Euro’s might be taking centre stage for most at the minute, but there’s been no lack of going’s on down Percy way either during the past month of so.
A few weeks ago we said goodbye and good luck to team manager Gavin Hattrick and his back room staff who left to take up a similar position at Northern league First division side West Allotment Celtic, after their previous manager, Jay Bates had departed for pastures new at Whitley Bay.

Perhaps predictably several of our players followed suit and at this moment in time, 8 have made the switch to Palmersville, namely Callum Elliott, Alfie Livermore, Ben Gaffney, Mackenzie Sharpe, Rob Ridley, Mark McDonnell, Lewis Brannen and Tom Bramley. Hopefully last season’s relative successes will,stand the lads in good stead for the challenge ahead.
Others have indicated that they would also be seeking pastures new and currently we don’t know exactly how many players from last season will remain at the club, time will tell, during the coming weeks. Again, best wishes to the departees and thanks for your efforts be it last season or those who had represented the club for longer than that.

As expected and as always, there was quite a lot of interest in the team manager’s position at Percy Main AFC, so much so that we had to close applications after just a few days. We do try to keep a good name at the club and it often bears fruit at times like this.
Steve Pickering was appointed to the job, we didn’t know him and he didn’t know us, but although he maybe expected there to be a greater pool of players at his disposal, he set about the task with great vigour and I have to say he has worked like an absolute Trojan and with great enthusiasm during the past few weeks and even at this relatively early stage, we have 28 players registered for the club for the coming 2024-25 campaign.
(Welcome also to player/assistant manager Decklin Moss, who will be Steve’s number 2)

That number includes 11 new signings (with more likely) which have comprised of a mix of young, up and coming local talent, some experienced Northern Alliance heads and some quality acquisitions from the Northern League. There are those who have elected to stay including Adam Green, who is approaching 250 appearances for the club in his 11th consecutive season and Joe Kelly, who returned to the side during the second part of last season and is said to have impressed greatly during pre season training, while several others of last season’s squad have signed, possibly on a dual who may or may not represent Percy Main AFC in the near future.
More detail on this during the coming weeks…..

The new season will start on Saturday August 3rd, with games Saturday and Wednesday until the end of the month and the opening fixtures will be released in mid July. Percy Main pre season games are as follows;

Wednesday July 3rd v Killingworth (home, 7pm ko)
Saturday July 6th v Marske United (home, 2:30 ko)
Tuesday July 9th v Easington CW (Ford hub, Washington, 7:30 ko)
Saturday July 13th v North Shields (home, Gary Hull Memorial Trophy, 3pm ko)
Saturday July 20th v Prudhoe YCFC (away, ko tba)
Saturday July 27th tba

Off the field and the Purvis Park pitch, already in canny nick has had a substantial refurbishment completed just last week, (later than hoped, but that just couldn’t be helped) which will once again make it one of the top pitches in the league and will hopefully enable us to stage games during inclement weather, if last season was anything to go by anyway! For once, rain actually came when we wanted it to!

New doors have been installed from the dressing rooms to the pitch which have smartened the place up a bit and most of the interior has had a good lick of paint, as has the outside of the building to get it looking as tip top as it can be once the action gets underway!
New signage is also being manufactured which will go on the exterior of the main entrance (hopefully in the next week or two) to help give the outside of the place a lift as well.
We’ve also had Steve Chater come on board as our new social media guru and he has produced a series of eye catching graphics and photographs to drag our content kicking and screaming into the 21st century! Keep an eye out for a lot more coming from Steve!

Season tickets are hoped to be available within the next few days (£30 & £10 concessions) and the ‘Club Lotto’ scheme will start on Wednesday July 10th (entry details out soon)
Tickets (£3) have been selling well for acoustic duo ‘Lost & Found’ playing in the bar on Saturday July 20th, there are still small amount left and there will be another musical evening planned for the preceding Saturday (13th) which will be announced later on this week.
As always keep an eye on the Percy website and social media outlets, for all the latest going’s on!

And I’m just hearing that our esteemed PMA women’s darts team won their league with 2 games to spare, after beating their closest rivals last night! Darts champions and drinking champions!
Well done to the Percy ladies, let’s hope that’s a good omen for the season ahead!

Never a dull moment!
Please support the club if you can!

#utm