From the Chairman …

As Chairman of Bugbrooke St Michael’s Football Club I would like to offer you a warm welcome to The Sett and hope that you have an enjoyable visit.

Here at Bugbrooke St Michaels we are working hard to develop a club with a strong inclusive ethos, offering opportunities for players of all ages and abilities.

We are extremely proud of our youth development programme, supporting players from seven all the way up to eighteen. Many of our young players go on to have success with one of four adult teams, with some players going on to even bigger and better things!

There is a great wealth of local support for the club, everyone that helps does so on a voluntary basis and through everyone’s hard work and dedication we have been able to achieve and maintain FA Accredited status.

Whilst some clubs choose to reinvest their revenue into players wages, here at Bugbrooke we hold a different set of values. All of our profits go into upgrading our equipment and facilities, building a solid future-proof foundation that will be here for future generations to enjoy.

Whilst this can sometimes hold us back from gaining huge success on the pitch, we feel our excellent facilities, youth development programme and ethos on community set us apart from other clubs.

Success and progression starts from the beginnings.

Thank you for your support today, we hope that you enjoy the game, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

Kevin Gardner, Chairman

Bugbrooke St Michaels Football Club would like to place on record our thanks to our team of volunteers, our advertisers and sponsors.

Good afternoon. We’d like to start today’s programme notes by extending a warm welcome to the players, officials and supporters of Newport Pagnell Town who are the visitors to the Sett for today’s United Counties Premier Division South fixture.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t get any easier for us, at least not on paper. Last week it was the runaway leaders Rugby Town, today it’s the current holders of the FA Vase!

In fact, when you look back at our last nine fixtures, we have played the top-eight sides in the division, Desborough Town being the only opponent below us in the table during that run.

Not only has the fixture list been unkind we’ve also had to deal with a growing injury list impacting availability over recent weeks. Notable absentees include Tom Binder, Will Jones, Brandon Hallmark, Dan Porter and Trent Oakes.

Added to this we have seen several players depart the Sett, the most recent being influential striker Eddie Panter, who we wish the best following his move to Step 4 side Harborough Town, once a Badger, always a Badger you will always be welcome back!

It’s been tough; however, we can’t sit here and feel sorry for ourselves, in fact we must learn from defeat and remain confident in our own ability as we know that on our day, we are more than a match for any team in this division. We have shown this on multiple occasions throughout the season, hopefully we can prove the doubters wrong once again today.

On a more positive note, one person’s loss is another’s gain, and it was great to see several of our current Under 18s involved with our United Counties team's last weekend; Johnny Carey and Carter Oakes joining up with Ronnie Gibbon in the Reserves, with Finley Amidi making his debut for the First Team.

Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come as unlike several teams at this level we do not have a sugar daddy with the cash to splash. We are reliant on developing our own players, which is something that we have done successfully and with immense pride over recent seasons.

In fact, nothing would give us more pride than to see Eddie Panter scoring goals at Step 4 Level showing our lads what can be achieved with hard work, dedication and no shortage of ability.

As always thank you for your support, enjoy the game and we look forward to seeing you again next Saturday when we host Rothwell Corinthians at the Sett.