SWINDON Town Official Supporters Club treasurer Tim Keen uses this week’s Town Talk to discuss the impending arrival of Manchester City in the FA Cup and note a change in stewardship for the OSC.

One more sleep until the big match then! There have been times in the past few weeks when I wondered if the match would go ahead with fans or at all, but it will, and we’re so grateful for that.

This game is basically a free hit and a huge financial shot in the arm for the club. While the OSC (along with the Trust) voiced their concern to the club about the ticket-price increase, as a business decision it made complete sense. And with the game selling out within days, Clem and Rob have probably made the right call.

For anyone at the Northampton match on New Year’s Day, it was also great to finally see Swindon win convincingly at home – against a strong Cobblers side. As Harry McKirdy himself pointed out in his post-match interview, the patience of the fans has finally been rewarded and Garner-ball is hopefully going to become a successful concept both home and away.

A big thank you to the OSC members who have offered their help free of charge with helping the stewarding of recent matches against Stevenage, Northampton and tomorrow’s game. Due to the additional government requirements for Covid passport checks, the club needed additional support – thanks to those members who stepped forward.

You might have also seen the recent announcement that our chairman Peter Norris has resigned from his role. We would like to place on record our thanks to Peter for all of his hard work in re-establishing the OSC over the last couple of years. We really appreciate the time, effort and energy he put in to making the group a success and we couldn’t have done it without his leadership.

I can confirm that Hannah Clinch (our current Events Coordinator) will take on the role as acting Chairperson while we re-group and re-plan for the remainder of the season. Please bear with us as we navigate through this busy time and remember, you can get in touch with us via email or using the contact form on our website www.stfc-osc.com/contact-us.

Finally, if you’re lucky enough to be a guest in hospitality for the Man City game at Foundation Park or Boom Battle Bar, then make sure you say “hi” to Hannah, Chris and Mark from the OSC committee, who will helping to check you all in!

Right, time to get an early night then and make sure we’ve got our loudest voices ready for the match tomorrow. Let’s turn the County Ground into a cauldron of noise and give the internationals and superstars of Man City a bit of a fright - who knows what might happen... COYR.