Last time out at Ford Meadow saw my first game in charge of Buckingham Town against Wootton Blue Cross and despite conceding an injury time equaliser to finish 1-1 there were many more positives than negatives. We played well as a team and everybody contributed, I was delighted for Matt Bines who at 17 years of age stepped in to fill the goalkeeping void left by injury to Mike Bell and the departure of Paul Warnecki and was magnificent on his debut, I believe Matt turned 18 last week so a belated Happy Birthday is in order. 
The match against Wootton also saw a debut for my first signing, 23 year old Sam Barker who joins us from Deanshanger Athletic, Sam acquitted himself well and I'm sure everyone will join me in welcoming him to BTFC. The game itself was scrappy in places but I felt we were the better side for 75 minutes and had we been more ruthless and more confident we would have recorded a vital three points. To give credit where it is due because we didn't put the game to bed Wootton put us under a lot of pressure in the last 15 minutes and but for young Mr Bines in goal and a brilliant goal line block tackle by Pat Diamond things could have been worse.Although I was impressed by all of the players in red I reserve a special mention for Kyle Stimpson for his fantastic and selfless attitude towards the team and the club. Anyone who has watched the Robins this season will know that Kyle has played as a striker in 95% of our games and is still our top goalscorer. I asked Kyle to play centre back against Wootton and he did so without a single complaint, this is the sort of attitude that all the players need to show and I'm sure in the coming weeks they will.
I arrived at the club on my own without any backroom staff, which may have been a daunting prospect were it not for the warm and generous welcome afforded to me from everyone at the club, so a short acknowledgement to Vince, James, Marc, Odette, Graham, Robin, Rocky, Steve and everyone else who works behind the scenes at BTFC. A special thanks to Mike Burnham and Jason Liscum, these two guys were here just before me and have agreed to join me in the dugout until the end of the season at least, Mike as First Team Coach and Jason as Club Physio and they have both been a massive help to me already.We travelled to Burton Latimer Saturday 12th March to face a Burton Park Wanderers side who beat us 4-0 at Ford Meadow only last month. I started with the same 11 players from the 1-1 draw last week against Wootton Blue Cross as I felt that they had performed well. We were also delighted to welcome back Ash Farmer after a shorter injury lay off than expected and Chris Robson who missed the Wootton game due to work commitments.
We started the game confidently and were slightly brighter than the hosts in the first exchanges, trying to play our short passing game and get at our opponents. Credit to Burton, they are a hard working side and they started to close down quickly and come into the game more. I thought Burton carried more threat than us at times in the first half, using direct 30/40 yard passes into the channels and their movement up front created a few openings but we held our own and saw it through to half time 0-0.The second half saw much of the same, at times it was backs to the wall defending and Matt Bines pulled off more brilliant saves to keep Burton at bay but we battled well and used the ball wisely when we had it.
With about 25 minutes left we introduced Ash Farmer to the game and he immediately injected a different kind of attacking threat. In the 72nd minute Ash took his and our 5th corner in a row putting the ball in exactly the right place for Kyle Stimpson to rise and head BTFC into a 1-0 lead. It was a nervy last 15 minutes or so but we did the hard yards well today and held on for a long overdue win.
The thing that impressed me today was that Burton didn't really allow us to play our own game and although there was a brief period where we looked a little out of sorts the players adapted their style and really dug in to give a steely display and they deserve a lot of credit for that.
I'll finish by thanking the supporters who travelled to Burton with us, it was nice to hear so much noise when the goal went in! Hopefully there will be plenty more to cheer about before the season ends. And a message for the fans, after today there are five home league games left this season. I can't promise that we'll get off the bottom of the table but what I do know is that it's going to be one heck of a ride with excitement, attacking football, goals and goalmouth incidents galore, so if you can spare your hard-earned cash get yourselves down to Ford Meadow and tell your friends about it!
Thanking you in advance for your continued support.
Dan Kingston
