Minchery is go!

Work to start on October 30th

In a statement read out this morning Firoz Kassam announced that he has signed a contract with Birse Stadia for them to complete the Minchery Farm stadium in time for the start of next season at a cost of £15 million. Birse took possession of the site at 11.00 this morning and building work will start in earnest on Monday October 30th, the first stage being to clear and lay the pitch before bringing in a team of engineers from building work being done at Manchester United's Old Trafford, which is nearing completion 12 months ahead of schedule. The stadium will initially have a capacity of 12,500, which can rise to 15,000 when the fourth side is added. Previous contractors Barr Construction were dropped by Kassam after contractual problems which arose after planning consent for the multiplex cinema was granted. Birse have a good pedigree in stadia construction: as well as the Old Trafford redevelopment they were also the contractors involved in the building of Reading's Madejski Stadium (designed by the same architects as Minchery Farm) and Bolton's Reebok Stadium.

You must be Joe Kinnear

In a follow up to the stadium announcement Mr Kassam also announced that former Wimbledon manager Joe Kinnear would be joining the club on Monday as a consultant. It was stressed that this was a short-term arrangement and that the longer term was still to be discussed. Initially Kinnear will be coming into the club to assess the current situation and make some recommendations to Kassam, presumably one of the first will be who should come in as the new manager. Kinnear's role still wasn't clear and is something that remains to be sorted out. The presence of Kinnear at the Manor will hopefully be a real coup for United and should assist greatly in bringing in a good calibre manager and some quality players.

Murph's up

Matt Murphy scored two goals for the reserves in a 4-1 win at Bristol Rovers' Memorial Ground last night. A strike from Jamie Brookes was sandwiched between them and a header by Ross Weatherstone, from brother Simon's corner completed the scoring. All this after the Gas had gone a goal up.