Ben Clasper's programme notes for our opening day clash with Braintree Town.

Well that went quickly didn’t it? Things are never dull at this football club and pre-season was no exception, far from a time to recharge our batteries everyone at the club has been working hard to prepare for the new season with the aim of improving the facilities and experience for fans, players and staff and I would like to thank everyone involved for the huge efforts that have gone into making those changes happen.

As we have so much to bring you up to speed on the column for this week is going to be a bit of a whirlwind recap of behind-the-scenes activity some of which you may have seen online in the past few weeks and we will be returning to cover some of these headlines in more detail in future special articles in the programme and on our usual online channels.

We have changes at board level to announce with our longest serving member Tom Cullen stepping down after just over four years although I am sure to Tom it feels like a lifetime. Taking up that board position is Dumebi Dumaka who many of you will remember from his playing days at the club.

Stepping in not only to pick up on Tom’s media responsibilities but also to help expand our communications and media offering is another familiar face as we welcome Tom Bale back into the fold, Tom will also be working closely with Joe Hickey who is staying on as club secretary but will also be supported this year by Jatin Guntupalli who is taking over the secretarial reins for the women’s team from Sue Plain.

After delivering his portion of our three-year plan Peter Crouch will be handing over the director of football responsibilities to Dumebi but we still expect to be able to welcome him back in a less official capacity and we hope and expect that we will also still see Tom and Sue regularly should their personal circumstances allow.

Much needed improvements have been made to our ticketing systems, the clubhouse décor, the changing rooms and the bar at the Dog Kennel Hill end and we really hope this makes for a much better experience this season. We received regular and heart felt feedback throughout a hard to predict, hard to manage season last year and the management have sought to make improvements to how we manage numbers in the ground, entry to the ground and the experience inside the ground. We hope that this continues to address some of the difficult experiences at some games last year and hope eventually it might encourage some of the fans to return who were understandably put off by those experiences.

We have also worked hard to address some of the frustrations the men’s and women’s teams had to endure with training facilities and are pleased to have secured their return to the pitches next to our site and we are working closely with St Olave’s and St Saviour’s Foundation and investing in an ambitious plan to upgrade those grounds so that they can support training for all of our men’s, women’s and youth teams and also matches and other community use as we continue to see a worrying fall in the availability of third party owned pitches.

It is important that the delays to the stadium do not completely hold up our ability to increase the sporting provision for the community and to increase the number of men, women and children able to participate. It is a matter of huge personal frustration that those who oppose the stadium do so in the name of loss of playing space and claim they want to retain (note, not renovate) a pitch that is in such disrepair it can only be used at your own risk. We should all have higher expectations for the quality of play space that our community should be able to access.

Our most significant battle off the pitch this season will be in December when the judicial review brought by the local individual against Southwark Council will be heard by a judge. Sadly, we have to accept that it is a genuine part of the process however disingenuous the words and actions of those involved may be.

So much for a pre-season ‘break’ but as a fan owned and fan run club what makes it all worthwhile is seeing you all back and we hope our efforts deliver the improvements you all deserve and that you have an enjoyable start to the season as a result as we welcome today’s opponents, Braintree Town for our first game of the National League South campaign. Welcome Back.