Well, that is the season well and truly over, and what a season it has been. The highs and lows have been unbelievable with the devastation of losing two very special people and the highs of promotion and a Birmingham County FA Midweek Floodlit Challenge Cup Final appearance at the superb ARMCO Arena, home of Solihull Moors FC.

Since Dean Gill was appointed as first-team manager in March the work on and off the pitch has been relentless for management, players, committee, and volunteers alike. The same can be said for all the players, management, and volunteers running our youth teams, the Ladies team and our veteran's team all of whom put in a tremendous amount of voluntary work on behalf of the club.

The work everyone does for our club and town is inspiring and I am immensely proud of everyone involved at the club. Thank you all.

Before looking at the season I would like to thank all of our sponsors and advertisers of all of our teams. They have been stand out all season and have been quite brilliant in their support. No one should underestimate the importance of our sponsors and advertisers. They do not have to do it, they do so because they want to support local people and clubs and we are thankful to them for doing exactly that.

In particular, Kevin Rogers and Sally Bromley at Paycare have been fantastic to work with since we re-formed and we are absolutely delighted that this season saw the ground re-named The Paycare Stadium now affectionately referred to by many of our supporters as "The Paycare". Long may our relationship with Paycare continue and help both parties continue to prosper.

On the field of course we have had the best season the club has ever seen. We have had 46 competitive League and Cup games with just 7 defeats. That is a win and draw ratio of 85% , a magnificent achievement at any level. A massive congratulations to the management team and the players and is a fantastic reward for the committee and supporters. Some of the football played this season has been sublime.

Never could we have dreamt less than 8 years ago on 9 August 2014 when we played our first game after re-forming that we would be promoted to Step 5. Our goal at the time was simply to resurrect the old club and have a team playing Saturday Adult football representing the town of Darlaston. How times and expectations have changed!

After playing 36 League games and two play-off games it took until the 96th minute of the play-off final when Kieron Miller unleashed his superb effort to send the majority of the 500+ crowd into raptures. That for me has to be the stand out high moment of the season. There have of course been others, Jeevan Purewal being selected to play for England Schoolboys, Andy Nicol breaking the club record by scoring 7 goals in the same game, a record Paycare Stadium attendance of 786, the list goes on.

Other stand out achievements include the Ladies finishing 7th in their first season in the West Midlands Regional League Division One North following their promotion last season. The youth teams continue to do us proud and across the age groups, they have reached several cup finals.

Of course, it cannot always be good times. Unfortunately, we also suffered the devastation of losing two of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet.

Firstly in November, we lost striker Leon Taylor who was taken ill following a game at The Paycare Stadium and passed away a few hours later. It was heart warming to see the superb response of the non-league football world following Leon's passing. The outpouring of love and support for Leon and his family was beautiful to see and be a part of. There is no doubt in my mind that Leon was with us last Saturday and I know he will be taking some credit for the winning goal. How I don't know, but definitely he will be.

Secondly, In January we lost Sue Jones the wife of treasurer Bob Jones. I knew Sue for nearly 40 years, we served on the same club committee and were both volunteers at the club for many of those years. Sue was a beautiful soul and was a regular supporter home and away.

Leon and Sue are greatly missed but will never be forgotten.

Both on and off the field we now start work on preparing for Step 5 football for the first time in our history, we will be playing in the Midland Football League Premier Division. Dean is already on the case talking to players and his management team and unbelievably within 48 hours of the season ending his training and pre-season friendly schedule is already taking shape.

Off the field, we have started planning for a Ground Grading visit. We know we will need to install a public address system, a minimum of a new 50 seat stand as well as additional covered accommodation for 50 people. We think that is all we will need but await the outcome of our ground grading inspection. The improvements need to be complete by 31 March 2023. We will also be undertaking some upgrades, repairs, renovations, improvements, and repainting works around the ground and clubhouse. Our pitch improvements and groundworks schedule has already started this week.

Finally. the club has grown immensely since being re-formed with the move to and development of The Paycare Stadium, 3 promotions, a record attendance of 786, and an average home attendance this season of well over 200. None of this could've been achieved without the magnificent effort, energy, work, dedication, commitment, and professionalism of our Committee and Directors who once again have been superb and shown me tremendous personal support this season. Four new members joined the Committee, and I am very privileged and proud as Chairman to have a fantastic team of Committee and Directors supporting me and working tirelessly for the benefit of our club and town.

Until next season ...................