Hurrah, for an update!!!!!

Finally after two years of pure unadulterated laziness, it has fallen upon me to update the website. Quite a lot has happened in that time, so here's a brief summary of what's happened since my brother updated the site.

Firstly after 4 years in charge Alan Velvett stepped down as manager, to enable the new pairing of Mark Sharman and Darren Selby taking over and lead us to new heights. And it would have worked, had the table been upside down. That is to say, unfortunately we finished bottom of Division 5, quite miserably in fact. But to be honest, the problems were hardly of Mark and Darren's making. The fact that they were never able to put out the same side two weeks in a row contributed, plus the fact that we couldn't hit a barn door from a yard between us.

After such a miserable year, there could be only one result. RELEGATION! However the AFA in their wisdom (or madness, depends which way you look at it!), decided that we deserved to stay in division 5 and prove we weren't as bad as it seemed. So stay up we did! Unfortunately we lost our goalkeeper due to old age and rumoured arthritis, although I did just make that up but he was getting old. Martin O'Gorman (Treebeard himself) retired after far too many years of loyal service. Possibly the best wind up merchant in the history of Citadel FC, sorry Cotch but he just beats you to that title, and also a quality keeper. He would prove to be sorely missed.

However someone had to pay for our atrocious skills, so we decided to get rid of the dozy pair in charge! Or the actual reality being that Mark couldn't commit as much time due to setting up his own business, and Darren never really wanted to do it in the first place and jumped at the chance to get out while he could. This led to the inspired partnership of the Richardson brothers, Marc and Scott, taking charge. The reason it was inspired? Because it finally meant that they didn't have to keep finding a place in the team for the slowest right midfielder in the history of the AFA, me!

The new managerial partnership brought a new method of managing the club. I did all the work, Marc did nowt! With the addition of a some new players, including a goalie (thankfully) there seemed to be a new freshness about Citadel at the start of the year. And it looked like the new method of me shouting a lot and Marc still doing nothing was working. Up until Christmas Citadel were on the up and looked like they would be pushing for promotion. Then disaster struck! What?, I hear you cry! What disaster could possibly ruin what looked like a superb turn around from last season?! The disaster we speak of is what's known as Citadel syndrome (again I just made that up). It manifests itself in such a way that we, as a team, suddenly decided to be rubbish for the rest of the season. People were committing basic mistakes and just not concentrating. Matches and opponents (which isn't acceptable) weren't taken seriously enough. It didn't help that we lost the Richard our goalie, and I had to fill in for the second half of the season (although it did earn me a player of the season nomination, cheers Dick!) Also not having a settled back four didn't help either, but on the whole Citadel collapsed because we just didn't approach the second half of the season with the right frame of mind. However all being said finishing 9th (out of 13) was an improvement on last season, and hopefully we will learn from our mistakes from after Christmas and this year push for that promotion we should have gone for last year.

Anyway, there were good points. Simon Black finally began to fulfill his potential and strolled away with player of the year. Also the emergence of Ramoth, who showed that when he's running at defenders there are few more fun sights in the league to watch. Plus there was Big David Maybury, all 20 foot of him, at the back. Showing that he's not only more gangly than Mr Sharman, but that he can moan at the refs just as well also!

So, all in all it wasn't a bad year. It just wasn't as good as it looked like it was going to be. Anyway we hope you like the changes to the site and we hope to see you at some games this year. And I promise to update the website regularly from now on. And if I don't you are allowed to blame Marc. Like I've said before, he does nothing!

Cheers,

Scott (somehow still Manager!)