Programme notes from Saturday’s game with Albion Rovers
Most of you will be familiar with the sporting quote “Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing” attributable to Vince Lombardi, Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s.
Perhaps understandable, given the rarity of a tied match in American Football, that he overlooked our current habit of drawing! There is scant consolation in the statistic that we’ve gone 5 league matches undefeated when the last four have been drawn, resulting in 8 dropped points. Simple arithmetic reveals that losing two and winning two of these matches would have produced a better outcome! A positive spin, however, is the number of chances we’ve created to win all four matches but our overall statistic of 5 goals in 10 league matches tells the story of what we need to do to adopt the winning habit! I remain confident – as do Kevin and the players – that our chances to goals ratio will improve and as a consequence, climbing the league towards a play-off spot will follow.
Another Lombardi quote is “There’s no substitute for work” and I can assure everyone that there is an abundance of this from Kevin, his backroom staff or the players.
Turning to today’s match, I extend the usual warm welcome to the Directors, guests, management, players and supporters of Albion Rovers but also prewarn them that the road to the winning habit starts at 4:50 p.m. this afternoon!
Regular readers of Inside the Box will recall that I mentioned the imminent appointment of two new Club Board Members a couple of articles ago. Unfortunately, these appointments have been unavoidably delayed by a combination of illness and business commitments but I’m confident that the green light is close to being illuminated on both and formal announcements will be forthcoming within the next couple of weeks.
On the volunteer front, I’m delighted to report that we have two back-up Tannoy Announcers to our lead man, Mattie Hollingworth. Matthew Reid and Fraser Barrell are not only trained and good to go but have both already seen live action with Mattie unfortunately suffering recently from some ill health. On behalf of everyone at the Club, I extend my best wishes to Mattie for a quick return to behind the microphone! The good news is that Matthew and Fraser have both volunteered to help out on match days with other duties and will, I’m sure, quickly become familiar faces around the Stadium. There’s no such thing as too many volunteers and anyone interested, please contact the Club by e-mail and we’ll get straight back to you!
Unfortunately, I have to close on a negative. A couple of (at this stage) informal reports of personal abuse being directed towards certain supporters have been received and I would wish to advise that the Club Board will not hesitate to take the strongest possible action in accordance with our Supporters Code of Conduct should anyone be found guilty of such an offence. Such behaviour is utterly abhorrent and will not be tolerated.
C’mon the Binos!
Stuart
Chairman
SAFC
