I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and that you enjoy your New Year celebrations.

Christmas is one of the busiest times in the football calendar, but this is not the case for futsal. There is a big gap between training sessions and the start of the season - about two weeks – which may not be very good. However, we’re not complaining, we are relishing each test and working as hard as we possibly can to move away from last year’s position.

Last year it was difficult for our club FC White Bear – USSR. We made lots of changes.

Firstly, our top four eastern European players went home and we were forced to start the season with our reserves squad. We lost six points, which was crucial to us at the end of the season, 2009.

Secondly, during the season 2009 we changed our direction from east to west. We signed the best futsal coach in UK Jorje Ribeiro from Ipswich Wolves. He is the man that gave the UK some of its best players; Bruno Ferrage, Sergio Raul, Ricardo Ferreira, Moizer Cofre, whom he transferred to our own team.

Thirdly, during the season we had two incidents on the pitch, Because of these, we were strongly punished by the FA and so I was forced to sack a few of our most valuable players from the team.

Fourthly, the FA warning to put our club out from the FA National Futsal League (following the incidents above), we decided to change our club name, club colours, club image and built ourselves a new reputation.

Fifthly, we were cheated on at the end of the season by the Brazilian futsal team Helvesia, who deliberately lost the last game against Genesis to take us out of the final. I think coach Ronaldo brought disgrace to his team and many other teams lost respect for these cheating champions.

It doesn’t seem long ago that the season finished. Pre-season has been tough but enjoyable. However, I think that, eventually like the players, you get fed up with pre-season training sessions and want to get on with the real stuff.

I am sure that next season, our games will be ones that are looked forward to and the atmosphere will be fantastic inside the court. But of course, our focus and preparations are all on the first game against James Rosa’s strong Brazilian team, London Utd. His team is one of the best in the UK so we have to make sure we produce a top performance.

On the pitch, it is always going to be difficult; each team will want to battle against us. I definitely think that our players are one of the best in England and they will show great spirit and performance.

Things are looking bright for the club at the moment but we want to build on the hard work. Great results will be achieved.

To our supporters; your support has continued to be superb and we are so appreciative of your following.

Oleksandr Saliy    

President -Spartans FC