In the preliminary round of this season's FA Youth Cup, Halstead Town have been drawn away to Ware FC.

The match will be played on Thursday, 9^th September 2010
KO is 7.45pm

The address for WARE FC is:
Wodson Park,
Wadesmill Road,
Ware,
SG12 0UQ

Please click HERE for a link to their website for directions.

Chairman delighted with progress of youngsters.

Jim Holder is pleased to report on the close season developments at the club and his view on the immediate future.

Following a three year period of sustained effort by the club to establish the path for young players to progress through the club teams while competing for promotion and every cup competition we were able to enter, events during the closed season dictated that we reconsidered our position.

Firstly Jody Brown’s ongoing health problems meant he was not able to spend the summer months preparing for the new season and the club had to act very quickly when he decided he should stand down. We are in regular contact with Jody and will do all we can to help him through his health issues. He will continue to take full responsibility for our Academy at Hedingham and Ramsey Schools and we look forward to it’s continued success. We wish Jody good luck with his health.

Despite the club’s best endeavours several senior players had already decided to play elsewhere. With other players having left the club since and this has meant that the process of introducing our young players to first team football has been speeded up. With 6 academy players already having played first team football last season, others playing well in the reserves and a new intake arriving in September, the movement of players during the summer offers great opportunity to all these young men. (As evidenced by both scorers in our first two games being academy players).

Leon Woodford, our reserve team coach has been a great support to the club during these recent few weeks and has shown his own potential by taking training sessions and matches at short notice for the first team. We wish him a successful season as our reserve coach and mentor for our young, developing players.

The club were delighted when Rob Munro agreed to join us. Rob (or “Scouse”, as he is known), has spent many years teaching and assessing coaches for the Football Association and has enjoyed success with Haverhill in recent years. During the last three weeks Rob has steadied the ship and started the process of rebuilding our team around our retained senior players Tom Devaux, Ed Wooten, Hyun Jin Lee, Ryan Sutton and Andy Joslin, who, together with our academy students and local young players are developing with some new signings into a very promising team already.

We thank the players who remain for their loyalty to the club and wish them, our youngsters, and new players a successful season.

We also wish all departing players every success and look forward to seeing them at Halstead in the future.

I feel sure our supporters will give our young team every encouragement this season and we can all look forward to an enjoyable and rewarding season.

The club is pleased to announce that Rob Munro has been appointed as first team manager. He replaces Jody Brown who recently stepped down due to health problems.

Rob is an FA qualified coach and joins us after 9 years running the youth set-up at Haverhill.

Previously, he lived in the United States where for 2 years he ran a soccer academy.

We wish Rob every success for the future, and at the same time would like to acknowledge the progress that Jody achieved for the club during his time here. We wish him all the best for a speedy recovery and hope to see him back at the ground in the near future.

In the first round of the Essex Senior Cup we have been drawn at home to Hullbridge Sports from the Essex Senior League.

The match will be played at Rosemary Lane on Tuesday 7th September. Kick-off 7:45pm.

An added incentive for us is that the winners of this tie have been drawn at home in the second round to FC Clacton. We remember being narrowly defeated by them in last year's KO Cup final.

The growing concerns sorrounding 1st team manger Jody Brown's immediate future have been confirmed.

Brown, who has been unable to attend any of pre-season so far, has now confirmed that he cannot give the level of commitment he feels is required for the job.

Brown, who alongside Chairman Jim Holder has been instrumental in the forging of partnerships with local schools and colleges, culminating in the formation of the so far very successful Halstead Town Academy, will continue to run the Academy whilst supporting the clubs staff where possible.

This move is currently deemed a temporary one, untill further notice. It is thought that Reserve team manger, Leon Woodford will take over in a caretaker role untill the long term future is clearer. This news will be confirmed as soon as possible.

Manager Jody Brown on his decision;

"I have been fighting a health condition for well over a year now, and i thought it was improving".

"However, it has been in decline for a month or so, to the point where i find managing as well as working with the Academy and supporting my family to much of a challenge"

"The club needs some stability and direction, and i currently cannot give that to them in terms of training sessions and match days"

"The Academy boys are flying, and could make their mark this year, however it is important that senior players that had made commitments to the club do not run away in its time of need"

In his time in charge, Brown has led the club to four major cup finals, and within goal difference of gaining promotion two out of three seasons. A number of good young players have been developed, and many have moved on to bigger things.

However, Jody hopes the current crop of talented youngsters will stick together;

"The season ahead was looking very bright, but my absence seems to have unsettled things, i sincerely hope that the players, staff, and supporters can get behind the club and its chairman to help pull us through this testing period"

"From my role within the Academy i will still be able to support whoever takes charge, but for the time being other people at the club will need to step up and take some responsibility"

Our new catering supremo, Matt Root, opened for business at Tuesday's game with Braintree and proved to be an instant success with his customers.

Top quality hot dogs and burgers will be on sale at all future games, together with chunky chips cooked as they should be.

Tea, coffee and cold drinks also available

Warning: can be addictive

Best Eaten Hungry!

With a number of last years squad venturing away from the club for pastures new, it has been reported that pacey wide man Ryan Sutton is due to return to the club following his departure back in November.

Sutton had scored 5 goals in 11 starts before his departure, and will be an excellent addition to the squad this time around.

"Looking at what we have managed to retain, I was concerned by the lack of raw pace, and potential goalscorers, Ryan can add that to the squad", said 1st team manager Jody Brown.

"I spoke with him, and he was keen to return, which is extremely pleasing"