I hope you were able to enjoy our recent match with Dutch giants Ajax at Bramall Lane recently.

If you were one of the 5,000 plus crowd who was able to come along to the game, then thank you for supporting the club’s anniversary celebrations.

It was a great spectacle and a somewhat surprising win for our side against one of the best clubs in Europe! I’ll not get chance to say that very often so might as well enjoy it.

Granted it may not have been an Ajax first-team, but the side still possessed a number of young internationals who I’m sure will be making names for themselves in the future.

I’d like to thank Ajax and all of their staff for sending a team to play against us and for all their great support shown to Sheffield FC.

In both our exhibition games we have been able to put on a spectacle for the people of Sheffield to enjoy and savour. I’m pleased so many turned out to both games.

Ajax, Inter Milan, Pele and Sepp Blatter all visiting the city in one season is not bad going and probably surpasses the achievements of many Premier League outfits!

Each event has really captured the emotion of the celebrations on the birth of club football in Sheffield. Who will forget Pele’s lap of honour on the Bramall Lane pitch or when Rob Ward headed home against Inter Milan to make it 3-2.

Great moments to treasure in Sheffield FC’s long history.

Coinciding with the Ajax game, Sheffield FC merchandise is now being sold at Bramall Lane as part of Sheffield United’s on-going backing of the club.

The Blades’ support has been terrific and they deserve a great amount of credit for the way they professionally staged two fantastic exhibition games for us.

It was interesting to see in the club shop before the Ajax game the United fans buying Sheffield FC’s red home shirt, while the Wednesdayites were buying the blue away strip!

I always thought our club would bring the city divide together!

I was devastated to hear of the passing of legend Derek Dooley yesterday.

Derek was a true gentleman and a magnificent person who will be sadly missed. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Derek epitomised everything that is great about Sheffield football and had the unique position of being loved by both sides of the city.

He was a great supporter of everything we were doing at Sheffield FC and I was delighted he was able to attend our 150^th anniversary dinner in October.

Derek had a special place alongside the greats of English football and I’m sure he will live on long in the memories of people who saw him play.

It has been an interesting start to 2008.

Firstly, I was knocked back with a severe bout of bronchitis which sidelined me for a number of weeks over the New Year celebrations! This is partly been the reason why I haven’t updated this blog for a number of weeks.

Thankfully, the illness seems to be subsiding and allowing me to continue making the most of our anniversary celebrations. We may now be in 2008 but our 150^th season continues and it’s important we take advantage of the profile we have managed to build-up around the world.

Now everyone is aware of our unique club and the important role it played in the development of football, I hope fans of the game will now come and join us by becoming a member.

The club remains very keen to stage another match in Sheffield against a top European side and discussions are taking place with a number of high-profile clubs. I am pleased to say that Inter Milan have been of great support in this, speaking with the clubs on how much they enjoyed playing against the world’s oldest club at Bramall Lane.

In regards to the team it has been a frustrating time for our players with the dreadful weather forcing the postponement of a number of matches during December and January.

Hopefully this will start to come to an end as we enter the Spring, and the team can resume its challenge on the leading pack after what was a terrific start to our campaign in the Unibond League.

Manager Dave McCarthy has put together a terrific squad of players and we are all looking forward to the second half of the season.

Well what can I say about the last couple of weeks apart from wow!

I have never experienced a few weeks like it and I apologise for the delay in updating this blog, as you can imagine it has been a bit hectic!

Thanks for all your kind messages of congratulations which we have received from around the world. It is great to see so many football fans come together to give their support to Sheffield FC. This is one thing we had hoped for from the outset, but it’s still pleasing the way the football world unites to celebrate this special time.

Our anniversary dinner was a huge success with Sepp Blatter the key guest along with Geoff Thompson, Sir Dave Richard, Sir Tom Finney, Gordon Banks and many, many more in attendance.

Everyone I have spoken with has mentioned what a great night it was and to have a vast amount of well known faces from football and Sheffield there with us.

We thought this was going to be a difficult one to follow, only for Sheffield United to inform us that they had managed to invite the legend that is Pele to Bramall Lane.

As you can imagine I nearly fell off my seat when we received the information from the Blades, especially after they indicated that Pele was to be the guest of honour at our game with Inter Milan!

I have to say a BIG thank you to Sheffield United for all their support during the last few weeks. They are a terrific club to work with, which is quite a complement from a Wednesdayite!

Pele agreed to open a Sheffield FC cabinet at the Legends of the Lane museum at Bramall Lane which features the first ever written rules by a football club. These were on show to the public for the first time in 40 years.

We then had more than 18,000 people attend what proved to be an entertaining game with Inter, our players giving them a stern test in the 5-2 win for the Italian Champions. I’m sure when Rob Ward headed in our second goal there was a few in the crowd, myself included, hoping for a remarkable comeback to complete the fairytale evening.

Looking back at the last couple of weeks, I feel like it has been all a dream at the moment. A team from the Unibond First Division South rubbing shoulders with the likes of Pele, Sepp Blatter and Inter Milan and all taking place right here in Sheffield. It is fantastic and at times I feel like pinching myself to check I am awake.

However, it goes to show that the city has a truly remarkable asset in Sheffield FC that world is taking notice of. We have enjoyed massive global media attention in recent weeks.

The club and Sheffield must take advantage of this important time.

Our 150^th anniversary is now less than a month away (October 24) and things are getting very exciting, and just as hectic!

There is a lot of anticipation surrounding the gala dinner at the Cutlers’ Hall, not least because of the guest appearance of FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

And Mr Blatter won’t be the only star name in attendance, with the likes of Geoff Thompson (FIFA vice-president), Ramon Calderon (Real Madrid President), Dr Massimo Moratti (Inter President), Richard Caborn, Bobby Robson (former England manager) and Bobby Charlton (England World Cup winner) all coming to the event.

I am of course shamelessly name-dropping, but in all seriousness, these guests will be more than just a photo-call. They are some of the most important and powerful names in world football and will give us a chance to put Sheffield FC on the map while also stirring up lots of interest in our special club.

Onto other news and the sports pages have been sent into a frenzy this week with Jose Mourinho’s departure from Chelsea. But the big football news at the moment is surely our announcement that Club will play European giants Inter Milan in a friendly match at Bramall Lane (November 8).

The Italian super-club, who celebrate their centenary next year, have indicated they are honoured to be playing Sheffield FC, which is just remarkable. I would like to say a big thank you to Inter for agreeing to play a team from the Unibond League. It should be a fantastic game for everyone involved and I hope you will be able to attend this unique occasion.

With all the excitement that is surrounding the club at the moment, it’s a great to see that on the pitch the team has enjoyed a great start to the season, enjoying a position near the top of the table and playing some really great football too.

It’s a terrific time to be involved with the world’s first football club.

As our anniversary is now just around the corner (October 24), we are starting to see a lot of media interest in Sheffield FC, which is great.

Journalists from around the world are contacting us for information and interviews about the oldest football club in the world and how it has survived for the last 150 years.

Reporters from Argentina, Italy, Spain, Holland, Germany, Poland, Finland and Australia have all been in touch with the club over the past couple of months, with some even coming to visit our stadium in Dronfield.

At our 4-0 home win against Cammell Laird, we had the TV company ADR - the German equivalent of the BBC. They were doing a feature on the club and I was delighted the team was able to put on a good performance while the cameras were here!

Another Journalist who has been in touch is the ESPN presenter Charlie Webster. http://www.charliewebster.com. Charlie is a Sheffield girl, who attended Tapton School, and has gone on to achieve great things in the media industry.

Her programmes attract millions of viewers around the world and I’m pleased that someone from Sheffield is taking such an interest in our club.

Having the media writing and talking about Sheffield FC and its history all helps raise awareness about our unique position in the game. We have a global brand which I believe can really help put the city on the map.

The more interest we can gain, the more people we will find who want to offer their support, either through coming to a game, buying memorabilia or becoming a member.

It is already having an affect with new members from many different countries giving their support. You just need to have a look at our wall of members at the Bright Finance stadium to see this.

David Beckham has made his much publicised debut for LA Galaxy and scored his opening goal for the club after making the move to the US last month.

He says that part of the reason for his transfer is to help promote football or soccer as they call it, in America. Beckham is the most well-known footballer in the world, so if he can’t help the game’s development across the pond then nobody can. I for one wish him success in it.

However, it is something that Sheffield FC helped to do more than 100 years ago.

The club had a number of players selected by a team called the Pilgrims, who toured the U.S and Canada in 1905.

One such footballer was Frederick Houghton Milnes, a talented and well-known amateur player. He was part of the Sheffield FC team which won the FA Amateur Cup in 1904 and subsequently was the moving spirit behind the Pilgrims.

It has been mentioned that the Pilgrims were even selected by the then US President Theodore Roosevelt, who wanted to eliminate brutality from American college football by increasing the popularity of soccer!

Milnes told in his reports back home that two deaths had taken place as a result of injuries in college football in the US. This had made American football increasingly unpopular and added to soccer’s appeal.

We believe that this Pilgrims tour was the first serious attempt to popularise association football in that country. It was seen as a successful tour and they visited twice more in subsequent years.

I think this probably started the ball rolling for soccer in America and I’ll be keeping a close eye on how Beckham progresses in creating new exciting in the Major League Soccer.

I know it’s a cheap plug, but you can find out more about the tour of America when Sheffield FC’s book comes out in October!

In response to the comment posted by Spizz Energi, I think the idea regarding the football community attending one of our games around the anniversary is a great one.

We have been working hard to make Sheffield FC everyone’s second club and this would be a great way to attract more interest in the club for all football fans. Watch this space.

I’ve just returned from a week’s holiday in Spain at the mother in laws! It was a good break and probably the last chance I’ll get to spend quality time with the family before the start of the new season.

I think it’s important to get away and recharge the batteries. It’s been a busy time over the last 12 months or so and I’m expecting to get even more hectic as our 150^th anniversary celebrations roll on.

Before the break I had a meeting with the chairman of the Football Association Geoff Thompson. The meeting took place in a garden centre in Chesterfield! Quite an unusual place to meet one of the top people in football in this country, I admit, but it was the most appropriate.

It’s also quite significant as our club’s first ever headquarters in 1857 was a greenhouse – I could make a pun about growing the seeds of football but I won’t.

I discussed with Geoff our plans for the annual dinner in October, which he will be attending along with FIFA president Sepp Blatter and a host of football dignitaries.

The FA is also helping to get Michele Platini, the new UEFA president to attend as well and we are very grateful for their support. I’m sure it’s going to be a great event.

We are already getting enquiries from journalists across the world including Argentina, Poland, Finland, Australia, Germany, Italy and Spain. They all want to know about our club and the anniversary, which is great.

An event which is coming up will be the arrival of the European and Premier League champions Arsenal ladies to the Bright Finance stadium.

They will be playing our ladies side in an exhibition game on August 8 as part of the anniversary celebrations.

Arsenal are one of the best ladies teams in the world, they won every game they played last season, so hopefully you can make it down to the ground and watch the game.