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Well done to all the players who have had to play sometimes three or four times a week to get the games played and in our case at Gresley the reserve team lads who not only played for the first team after almost all the senior squad left with three games remaining but also to fit their own league schedule in. Huge effort lads.

However, the biggest well done and thank you must go to all the unsung heroes who somehow got all the games played on time when a month or so ago it seemed absolutely impossible to complete the League’s requirement of having all games done by the end of April.

In that I mean all the voluntary ground staff at our clubs who worked tirelessly trying to get the pitches fit to play on during one of the wettest winters in living memory. The almost constant drenching of our pitches from January to the end of March gave these miracle workers more headaches than normal.

We haven’t all got the luxury or an artificial or perfectly drained grass pitch as some have in our league. We at Gresley are playing on a pitch which is over 100 years old and is showing its age. Back then players accepted playing in inches of mud or snow during the winter months but nowadays they expect a better surface on which to play and rightly so.

Unfortunately, Gresley like so many others I suspect, have not got the finances to rectify the deficiencies in the drainage if any is even installed that is. Perhaps a share of the Premier League billions could or should be filtered down to help our non-league clubs - I won’t hold my breath!

Our ground staff have to work with what they’ve got and a great job they do too. They are the unsung heroes of every non-league club and I take my hat off to each and every one of them. So, the next time you are at your local club, find a member of the ground staff and thank them for all their hard, unpaid work they’ve put in this season against incredible odds to get games played and let’s hope we don’t have another winter like the last one.

Rob