James Whiting

Good afternoon and thank you for your support.

This has been a busy week for the club of course and on Wednesday we parted company with Keith Curle and Colin West. Firstly and most importantly, we must place on record our sincere thanks to both Keith and Colin for the job they did at the club. We were towards the foot of League 2 when they came in, they turned things around, helped us achieve an unforgettable promotion and also played a big part in the club’s community response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Thank you Keith and Colin, and best wishes for the future.

Unfortunately though, results, and particularly our goal output, has left us in a difficult position in the league and we felt a change was in the best interests of the club. We are fortunate that we have Jon Brady, ably assisted by Marc Richards and Ian Sampson, to look after matters and we wish all three the very best as we face an important few weeks ahead.

There are 20 games to go, each one of them very important, and while we are very disappointed that our supporters are not able to attend matches at the moment, we know we can rely on your fantastic support and that you will be right behind us for each of these final 20 games. Thank you once again for that support.

We start that run today with an important game against Burton Albion, and we welcome Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink back to the club. It will be good to see him again.

All of us at the club were deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of H. Hitpreet Singh, or H as he was known to everyone, worked for our partners Logic Service Management and H was a key part of our matchday team, often overseeing the car parks here at the PTS Academy Stadium. He was working home matchdays until very recently and his passing has come as a huge shock to us all. We send our sincerest condolences to H’s family and friends and all at LSM.

Good luck to Fitness Coach Pablo Garcia who has moved on, and good luck and thank you to Ashlee Adebayo, who has moved up from the academy to take over Pablo’s duties. Ash’s opportunity to step up shows that there is not just a player pathway open at this club, there is a staff pathway too.

Huge congratulations once again must go to everyone involved with the Northampton Town Community Trust after the work of our Community Trust was once again recognised nationally on two separate occasions.

BBC Breakfast recently featured our work to tackle loneliness, alongside the work of Premier League sides Everton and Tottenham. I must take this opportunity to say how proud we are of the work we do, and a huge amount of credit must go to Bob Allen, our Loneliness Officer, for his fantastic work. If you haven’t already seen it, I would particularly encourage you to go online and see the video we have produced detailing Audrey’s story and how we have managed to help her over recent months.

The Community Trust have also been recognised for their work in the Man v Fat League. This is an initiative that helps men lose weight, by becoming physically active and by making lifestyle changes, and our own Community Trust’s Man v Fat League has been named as the best league nationally. Thank you to everyone involved for your work to make the programme such a success.

Finally, thank you to our sponsors, the Northampton Marriott Hotel.