Clapton Manager, Glen Kendall views on the recent changes at OSD:

Hearing the news that Clapton Community FC has been offered the lease at the OSD was obviously a hard pill to swallow, along with the aftermath messages I read and comments that have been sent through, including suggestions that the club will fold and quotes stating end of the road.

These kind of remarks couldn’t be further from the truth. Anybody who knows the strength of the personalities and characters behind this football club, will know…. in dark times, we light our matches, pull together to create light and find our pathway.

The club has been working silently through times of adversity for a long period of time, very few know the whole situation. Losing the ground hurts, of course it does. Doesn’t mean we can’t continue to walk forward. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.

We have been working tremendously hard all summer to assemble a squad capable of being a force in this league. Over the coming weeks, we will begin to see the fruits of our labour. Sure some of the early results have prompted responses and questions surrounding our and certainly my ability. It doesn’t bother me for one minute –  I know what we have, where were going and how we plan to achieve our goals. People seem to forget, only a single player was retained from last year. We are working with an entirely new squad.

The new football management team came in to work alongside everyone to transform the club… any transformation takes time. What we have been doing is settling  into a working ethos, a standard, laying down the pillars on which to build upon.

We have a fantastic group, who are fully committed to the club, and fully committed to the cause.

This is a great club, with a fantastic history…. In no way, shape or form are we about to let that go to waste.

Too many people have been working far to hard, for far too long, for us to ever even consider. It’s not happening.

I came here to take the club forward… that aim and objective hasn’t changed. There’s more than one way to reach the same destination. Hard times can pull people together and make them stronger. Challenges are a separation task, made to show who truly has what it takes.

Turn the page, for this chapter has closed. We now embark on writing our own history!

Glen Kendall
Manager