Welcome to the Abbey
Andrew Pincher - Hull City, Tuesday 9th March 1999
As you will all probably know by now, we have signed Sam McMahon until the end of the season, but what you won't know and may find amusing is the behind the scenes tale that accompanied his signing. Once Sam had put pen to paper in my office last Thursday afternoon, I made a call to the Chairman to obtain his whereabouts as he also had to sign the forms. I then made the trip to his building site in Great Shelford, parked the car and then made my way across the site to find him on top of a half-constructed house, So, after meeting the Chairman half way, I climbed the ladder, he jumped down onto the scaffolding, Sam's forms were signed on top of the building!
Then the following morning, with the imaging roll on the fax machine having run out, we were unable to receive incoming faxes with regard to the paperwork sent to the F.A. and Football League in respect of Sam's registration. Our supplier assured us that they would be with us that morning, but while we were waiting, and if we were desperate, we could rewind the imaging roll in order to receive faxes, albeit of a lesser quality. Therefore, Mark Johnson and I removed the imaging roll from the fax machine and rewound it, which took about five minutes. We then put it back in the machine which then printed out faxes stored in it's memory since the previous afternoon ... another five minutes. Just as this had finished, Sian came into Mark's office holding a parcel and said "Are you waiting for imaging rolls for the fax machine?" Aaah!! In the end everything went through o.k. and Sam was available for selection for last weekend's trip to Exeter City. We now have a new date for the League game at Rochdale which has already been twice postponed, firstly due to bad weather and more recently due to their involvement in the Auto Windscreens Shield. The match will be played at Spotland on Tuesday, 27th April 1999, kickoff 7.45pm. Whilst on the subject of fixtures, we have changed the kick-off time for the reserve game at home to Southampton to 7.00pm. This has been decided following excellent attendances at our games against Arsenal and Chelsea. We also have West Ham due to visit The Abbey on April 28th 1999. Next Tuesday we will hope it's a case of third time lucky as we host Birmingham City Youths in the re-arranged Southern Junior Floodlit Cup tie, with a 7.00pm kick-off. Your support would be greatly appreciated. We have not heard anything from Barnet as regards next week's fixture being all-ticket. I did contact them to ascertain how many places there were for visiting supporters and they informed me that they could accommodate 1,300. With this in mind, and in view of our recent excellent travelling support, I would advise supporters to arrive in good time. On Friday I received confirmation that the game away at Brighton on April 6 will definitely be played at Gillingham's Priestfield Stadium. The Seagulls were hoping to be in their new Withdean Stadium by the time we were due to visit, but it now seems unlikely that they will play there until the 1999-2000 season. The special offer for the three all-ticket games has now ended and I'm pleased to say that we had a positive response to the scheme. Tickets are now on sale for the individual games at normal prices for the Main Stand, North and Habbin Terrace. Please note that the games against Cardiff City, Peterborough United and Brentford are all-ticket and tickets must be purchased in advance of the games. Season Ticket holders are reminded that they do not need to buy tickets for these games. Paul Wanless recently spoke out against the disciplinary system this season which has resulted in him missing Saturday's game against Barnet along with Marc Joseph. With three players, Jamie Campbell, Andy Duncan and Neil Mustoe missing last Saturday's game at Exeter City it is something that will test the strength of our squad in the coming weeks. The system has changed from last season, whereby players could remove one caution from their record providing they went five consecutive games without a caution. However. as I think I have said before, a previous system to that would have meant a player missing two games for reaching five cautions by this stage of the season. Either way, in view of the amount of cautions that are now issued a review of the system would be appreciated, especially if it could give some form of consideration to the amount of games the players have appeared in. Paul has played around 40 games so far this season and given that fact five cautions is not unreasonable. With the present system you are always likely to have players suspended at the back end of the season for reaching five cautions, so maybe the threshold could also be increased after certain dates within the season. Andrew Pincher |