City’s Mansell Wallace has spoken of the withdrawal symptoms he has suffered after four weeks without football and revealed he can’t wait for the World Cup and the new Blue Square Bet South to kick into life and supply him with his fix!

Nearly a month has passed since the Clarets’ play-off semi final second leg defeat against Bath City and Wallace, having recovered from that disappointment, is now focussed on the task of doing what he can to make sure it’s third time lucky for Glenn Pennyfather’s squad in their renewed campaign to bring Premier football to the County Town.

Mansell enthusiastically expressed: “Pre-Season training begins on 5th July and everyone is raring to go already! We’re in the final stages of arrangements with several Football League clubs to confirm the dates of friendlies and there will be a couple of regulars as well as a mixed bag of different ones. We hope to be in a position to announce the full list within a week to boost our season ticket sales, which are already very promising.”

Off the pitch progress is also gathering pace, although there will be two departures. After several years of success as Manager and, more recently as Director of Football, Wallace confirmed Jeff King will no longer be engaged in the playing side of the club: “Jeff will become a future shareholder in our proposed Community Interest Company structure though he’s no longer involved in any official capacity. He is obviously still in regular contact with Glenn, however, as they are friends and go back a long way.”

Caroline Barker has also stepped down from her position within the media department. Mansell wished her well for the future and appreciated her input towards the club’s publicity work, adding: “Caroline did an awful lot for the club in her time with us and she really will be missed. You only have to see the way the Stadium was decked out in claret for the play-off game with Bath City and a lot of that was thanks to Caroline’s input.”

“We have options lined-up as our main sponsor for this coming season. We’re also in dialogue with our kit suppliers, Vandanel, about new designs as part of our contract with them and there were images available at our recent Dinner & Dance. We hope to have samples from them imminently though, after last year’s problems, we definitely have a Plan B in reserve. The whole planning process is starting to become very exciting indeed.”

“Short of arranging for Ronaldo to come and play for us, the best thing our supporters can do is encourage more new fans through the turnstiles! We need the people of Chelmsford to support Chelmsford City so we can build the crowds that lead to a bigger budget. Our playing resources are fluid and if we have extra money coming in that we haven’t budgeted for we can increase it. We also want to make the Clubhouse the place to be during the World Cup and hefty bar sales certainly wouldn’t do us any harm!”