Ambitious newly formed 11th tier club target 1,000 fans for their first league game

An ambitious newly formed 11th tier club Windsor & Eton FC target 1,000 fans for their first league game at home in August.

They tweeted: “Now we’ve reached 1,000 followers we want YOUR help!

“We want to set ourselves an ambitious target for our first Saturday home league game (12th or 19th August).

‘We want to get 1️⃣,0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ people through the turnstiles.

“Who’s in?

“We need everyone’s help, starting today!

“We want people to invite friends, family members (animals could ‘potentially’ count 🤔), people to post to their social channels, help with posters, any out of the box ideas!

“Ambitious? Yes. Remember, it’ll be FREE entry. Let’s go #Target1000”

We want people to invite friends, family members (animals could ‘potentially’ count 🤔), people to post to their social channels, help with posters, any out of the box ideas!

Ambitious? Yes. Remember, it’ll be FREE entry. Let’s go #Target1000

— Windsor & Eton FC (@WindsorEtonFC) June 28, 2023

Windsor & Eton FC will get their much anticipated new era underway this year having been handed a place in the Thames Valley League Premier Division.

They will face 13 other teams in the division with winning promotion the hope for manager Matt Angell and assistant manager Rob Webb.

They can only do that however if they apply for it and it doesn’t necessarily mean they need to win the league to do so.

They would need to hope finish above clubs who also may apply for promotion and pass a ground grading inspection, with Stag Meadow, which they secured a 25-year lease of, all good given it staged step five level football in 2022/23.

Windsor & Eton club owner and chairman, Mark Cooper, said, as per Maidenhead Advertiser: “We’re absolutely delighted to be put in the Premier League of the Thames Valley, it’s a great place to start our journey, it really is,” he said.

“I met the guys at the league there a month ago and explained what we were trying to do, and they’ve been great to deal with. Tonight, it was confirmed that we’d got our spot in the Premier Division.

“They’ve got five divisions and it was the best outcome we could have hoped for.

“It’s a great place to start this exciting journey with some great local games as well. It’s going to be a great first season.”

 

2️⃣8️⃣ players at 1st Team training tonight 👊

Roll on that first friendly! pic.twitter.com/VcGxIsnlqo

— Windsor & Eton FC (@WindsorEtonFC) June 29, 2023

🗓️ PRE-SEASON UPDATE

A change of game on the 5th August and we are finalising a friendly for the 15th July.

🟢 @EghamTown – 8th July

🔴 @vwfcofficial – 11th July

🟢 @FHFC1907 – 18th July

🔴 @Penn_football – 25th July

🟢 Royal Holloway – 1st Aug

🔴 @PrestwoodFC – 5th Aug

— Windsor & Eton FC (@WindsorEtonFC) June 27, 2023

Also in Windsor & Eton’s league for next season is the following:

AFC Winkfield (promoted from Division 1)
Burghfield
Finchampstead
Henley Town (elevated from Division 1)
Holyport Reserves (promoted from Division 1)
Hurst (promoted from Division 1)
Maidenhead Town
Reading City U23
Reading YMCA
SB Phoenix
Slough Heating Laurencians
Wargrave
Westwood Wanderers
Windsor & Eton (new club)

Matt Angell said via Slough Express this week: “Sunday was a really good success. We used it as an opportunity to invite down some of the under 18 Windsor & Eton players. It was a good chance to see those, and some other players from outside the town. We got a lot from it, and I think 12 or 13 of them are coming to training tonight (Tuesday) and there we’ve got our own players who we’re adding in coming down for their first session tonight as well.

“It will be a pretty full first session. I could imagine there will be 25 plus there, and we’ll whittle it down a bit. I would imagine we’ll run with a squad of 22-24.

“We always had an inkling of which league we’d be in. We were prepared for step 7. It’s a great league with some really good grounds to go to. There are a lot of players trialling at various clubs. They might come for a session or two and then go somewhere else, but we’re aiming to sign a couple of players tonight and we should have more of an idea of where we’re at as a squad in a couple of weeks. It’s super exciting and we’re over the moon with the backroom team we’ve got. They’ll give the players huge support this season.

“Windsor & Eton is a big club in essence. Although we’re a new club there’s a big history in the town with this football club. That’s always going to add some pressure. Playing at Stag Meadow, everyone will raise their game when they play there. There are some good teams in this league so we can’t underestimate anyone. We want to be at the top, fighting for the league and the cups, but we can’t underestimate how tough it will be with the likes of Finchampstead, Burghfield, Maidenhead Town to name a few.

“It’s a huge gesture,” said Angell on hoping to have 1,000 fans at their opening league game. “If you consider Windsor were averaging 180 people through the gate last season, for those people it’s going to be free of charge. The Great Park Crew are super excited about that, and they’ve talked of buying replica shirts. It’s going to be great for the players to hopefully have bigger crowds through the gates. There are lots of plans in place to try and get a big gate for the opening game. We want to create a community buzz around the club, and we want the players to engage with the people coming through the gate.”