It has been an enjoyable off-season and pre-season throughout the club, with plenty of work being done behind the scenes to prepare the Optima Stadium for the new campaign.

The Portugal trip was very productive in terms of media, as we hopefully brought the supporters closer to the players and coaching staff with some behind-the-scenes videos of training and interviews with people who you wouldn’t normally hear from.

We have made the difficult decision to stop our physical matchday programme for the 2025/2026 season. We are pleased to be able to offer a free digital matchday programme for every home game this campaign. The link will be posted on social media the day before the game, and a scannable QR code will be available around the ground on matchdays. Josh & Rob have both spent time perfecting the programme in the lead-up to our first home game vs Chelmsford City, and we hope all of our supporters enjoy reading the programme from wherever they like on a matchday

The media team continues to grow on matchdays, with our new radio service hosted by Corey hopefully proving popular with supporters home and away. Launching a radio service has been something that we have talked about for years, and thanks to Corey contacting us midway through last season, we are delighted to get this provision in place.

Ade & Mark continue to capture every pivotal moment through the lens at Men’s First Team matches, and we are pleased that they continue to be with us for another season. It is also a great pleasure to welcome Lucas on board as well, who will be capturing images of our Under-18s side throughout the 2025/2026 season.

Sid continues to provide brilliant updates and content surrounding our Women’s side, and it is great that Jake Richards has agreed to provide a similar service for our Under-18s fixtures this season. A big thank you to Emily as well for providing great content on our TikTok and Instagram when it comes to matchday.

Tim continues to make the matchday experience for all a positive atmosphere, with his good choice of music & recognisable voice continuing to be the voice of The Optima for an 11th season.

It’s been great to welcome Ty in as our new graphic designer for the season as well. Ty has already put together some quality graphics for us during the first few months, and we are very pleased to have him on board.

While things on the media front may not have been perfect during the pre-season, we continue to evolve and provide different content for our supporters of all ages to enjoy. If anyone has any suggestions for us or anything that they would like to see, please do approach us on matchdays or email me at liam.drury@wsmafc.co.uk, and we will take any suggestions into account.

We look forward to an enjoyable season at the Optima – Get behind the boys from minute one and they’ll deliver!