ALMOST 70 members attended the first Senior Blues Meeting of the 2022-23 season, held as always at Chester FC's Blues Bar.

Guest speakers were CFU Chairman Kieron Sheil, who updated attendees on the progress made over the summer, including the recruitment of Calum McIntyre as First Team Manager; Georgina Slawinski who explained her role as General Manager and distributed copies of the Chester FC Commercial Brochure.

She was followed by player Matty Waters, who thanked supporters for the financial assistance for his ACL operation through the Chester Former Players Association Just Giving Crowd Funding Appeal.

Matty is being helped in his rehabilitation by the club and is targeting March 2023 as a return date.

Grenville Millington, representing the FPA, asked those present to give generously if they hadn’t already and then proceeded do a brilliant time-filling stand-up routine of stories from between the posts whilst waiting for Calum and Colin Woodthorpe to arrive from training.

Colin needed slightly more persuasion to speak than Calum (and Grenville!) but unsurprisingly both received the members' full attention and support for the coming season.

On a sad note, after the meeting a number of members attended the funeral of Senior Blues Treasurer Vic Croft. Vic was encouraged onto the Committee by his good friend and true Blue, Peter Mitchell who passed away in May 2021. Vic will also be sadly missed.

On Friday, August 19, a 53-seater coach carrying passengers with a combined age probably somewhere in excess of 3,600 years set off from the Deva Stadium at 9.30am for Menai Bridge. The owner of Plas Cadnant was most welcoming, the gardens were spectacular, the food in the cafe was superb and the coach driver was particularly skilful in negotiating the steeply descending single track road into the valley. The weather was perfect and a good day was had by all.

All Senior Blues meetings start at 10.30am in the Blues Bar with tea/coffee and biscuits and there is always a raffle with several (predominantly liquid) prizes.

The next meeting will be September 2, featuring Albert Davies- Communications Manager & Football Administrator CFC; George Glendon CFC Captain; Mike Allcock Academy Manager & First Team Coach.

Next will be the meeting on October 7, with Chris Matheson MP for Chester and Chester FC Supporter; plus John Bithell’s Big Quiz.

November 4 will see guest speakers Kate Mylchreest, CFC Board Member and Head of Development Storyhouse, Chester, and Chas Sumner CFC Historian

Membership is £10 annually and renewals are now due. New members are welcome. All proceeds are directed towards the Senior Blues Youth Foundation.