As we return to football this pre-season and welcome our Fleet supporters back to the Kuflink Stadium from mid-July, we would like to issue an in-depth update for you all ahead of the 2025/26 season with everything that has been happening around recruitment, the team, the club off the pitch, the Harbourside stadium development and more.
Recruitment
As you have seen with the signing announcements over the past month or so, our squad recruitment has been all but completed with our squad list and numbers published. Josh Wright is very happy with the squad makeup as well as with the first 10 days of pre-season training which have been very productive and successful as the new playing group beds itself in.
The focus in our recruitment this close-season has very much been in acquiring players who have demonstrated their ability to play a high number of games per season over the course of several years. There has been a lot of rigorous medical mitigation and testing to ensure we have physically strong players of great character to join those players we have retained.
We have not been limited just to new players in our drive to constantly evolve and improve the squad as we have also been hard at work in finalising our sports science and medical department team for the new season. James Clark takes on the Head of Performance role and Kiah Froud as Strength & Conditioning coach, while former head Physiotherapist of AFC Wimbledon, Crystal Palace, West Ham United, Cardiff City and Charlton Athletic – Steve Allen – joins us as our medical lead to oversee and run the department. We also welcome Samuel Collyer as our head analyst to the club.
Pre-season
As well as training, the pre-season matches are up and running. We started with our match on Tuesday 8th July against Punjab United. It’s a fixture where last year we did have some challenges with injuries to players. It is a very important fixture for both clubs as we remember Steve Cook, a long-term local groundsman at Punjab. They are also a very big part of our Gravesend and Northfleet community and one we are proud to serve and be involved in, so we will always play that fixture in his memory and in the spirit between two local clubs who now enter a sixth year of pre-season matches together. Since then, our first team have been in action against Aveley on Saturday, 12th July (0-0) and against West Ham U21s on Tuesday, 15th July (2-0 – goals scored by Lennon Peake and Gene Kennedy).
We plan our pre-season fixtures very carefully in terms of player loading and what Josh and the squad require week to week alongside our training and performance plans. With that, it’s a challenge each year to agree a set of friendly matches – as you have all seen recently with the fixture on 26th July, Boreham Wood approached us originally to set up a game on that Saturday and then cancelled on us because they had a better option to host a West Ham United fixture at the last minute. There are pitfalls and a lot of organisation that goes into agreeing matches, where other clubs have only certain free weekends and their own commitments too, so it’s often something of a chess game to fit all the pieces on to the board the way we want to.
Admiral replica kit
Supporters have been updated about the 2025/26 kit and those who have pre-ordered have received emails about delivery and collection. The home shirts and a large amount of the new Volt training wear have arrived and are in store. It’s been a good start to our relationship with Admiral and all the feedback with the kit from our supporters has been exceptional.
The issue surrounding the away kits we have already documented. The change of colour on part of the away kit was not one we had planned or hoped for. To explain some of the background around that, potentially we could have persisted with the original design but there are some large corporations involved and clubs we have been told had spent months and a large amount of money to develop a kit of a similar nature. As such, we had to make the decision whether or not to go into battle over the issue and risk expensive legal proceedings to enable us to continue to go with the original colour scheme, delaying our kit rollout and sales to our supporters.
The other option was to go with the alteration we have now, the yellow being one of the final colour choices that we had looked at with Admiral prior to settling with the orange. The quality of kits is excellent, along with the Volt training range. In previous seasons, some of our home shirts have been a darker, cherry red depending on kit-manufacturer templates and processes but this season Admiral has produced the traditional Pantone Red of Gravesend & Northfleet/Ebbsfleet United. You’ll see it’s brighter, more eye-catching and perfectly sets off the retro element of the kits which, from the feedback we have received, is proving very popular with supporters – and not just those of you old enough to remember the Seventies!
Fixtures, support and away travel
A huge part of last season was the support both home and away. The last time we were in this division, we were one of the best supported sides home and away with some exceptional crowds; Josh Wright, his staff and the players are very much looking forward to enjoying this season alongside all of you again. We look forward to the excellent job that the Fleet Supporters Trust does in organising away travel for supporters and, now that the league fixtures are out, we will also announce in due course the implementation of a ‘club away weekend’ once we identify a suitable date and trip.
Northfleet Harbourside
Last month, the Planning Inspectorate commenced the four-week public enquiry ahead of a report to the secretary of state. It was a busy period and a process designed to allow interested parties, for and against the project, to make representations – but it’s predominantly for the inspectorate to decide whether or not the original planning approval by Gravesham Borough Council was warranted and to attempt to bring the opposition and those in favour of the development together.
During that process some of the opponents locally had spoken out against the development based on boundary and access issues, so the inspectorate had asked the Harbourside team to offer solutions, which we have done. This has meant that as a result of alterations to access and boundaries to ensure this proper process is followed, the inspectorate wanted to revert to an open consultation period rather than approve the changes without everyone having their opportunity to comment.
Therefore the consultation period has been reopened and we’re looking for a decision to be made some time in November. We understand the frustration of the planning process, but those are the rules we operate under in the UK. We continue to solve and cooperate with these planning alterations to assist local businesses and the community and it’s now in the hands of the planning inspectorate and secretary of state.
We do need the active support of our fans on this. Unfortunately the planning process allows a minority of people who are against the development to perpetuate issues. Many of you will have seen a sustained, focused and paid professional PR campaign against this particular development and will have noticed ‘interested’ groups on Facebook springing up. In one particular case, a supposed EUFC club blog and social media identity was created to mislead and malign but has since been shown to be a professional paid and designed account to spread anti-development propaganda around our community. It targeted not only the development but also our club and our former chairman and owners, wrongly linking the development to the London Resort scheme.
We report this only so you are aware of it and the methods being used to undermine the development and to sow unnecessary discord locally. We would reiterate how this development creates a net gain for this area and an improvement in infrastructure. For example, there are 840 square metres of new medical practices built in to support the local Northfleet community and there is a huge net gain in jobs and housing to contribute a significant amount towards the housing target that Gravesham Borough Council needs to reach without encroachment on any Green Belt land.
We are all locals here and support the moves for vast improvement to the area – and the only way that is going to happen is with this kind of investment and planning application being approved. So if you do get an opportunity to support us or to call out those ‘influencers’ from outside who are anti- the development for reasons of their own, any such support is very beneficial. Those opponents do not want to focus on legitimate planning problems when they seek to dispute the plans; they move from one complaint to another once one is solved; and they now restrict themselves to their own controlled and heavily policed platforms where they cannot be called out, all of which speaks for itself. This development is for our club’s future and sustainability as well as the future of our local community.
National League/South
You may have noticed that the football market is flooded at the moment with new and predominantly international investors and purchasers looking to invest in football clubs, particularly in and around London and in our league alone in the past 12 months.
This has led to some huge spending in the division and the knock-on effect that has in recruiting for clubs. We’ve committed to this season and going forward to a very strong, very common-sense-based budget and we believe our recruitment demonstrates that. It will be very competitive in our division but we will not engage in the money wars or the short-sighted overreach that others may pursue in order to achieve short-term gain.
We are in a market where there is constant interest and enquiries about purchasing clubs; it’s very important as custodians of this football club to ensure that we always keep an open mind and follow due and proper process to follow up on any genuine interest in investing in the club. That is true whatever the level of potential investment, be it 1% to 100% and everything in between and whatever format that might look like. This is to ensure that we are not close-minded to investment and always consider the best interests of the club and what opportunities for future investment and ownership there might be.
The KEH Group and the Al-Humaidi family have been committed in supporting the Club and this is their 13th season of its stewardship. The ownership group has experienced various challenges over the years but has continuously committed to strong common-sense financial management. The strength of the Club is the passion and loyalty of its fans and the local community.
In order to support the future growth of the Club and to help maximise significant opportunities, the Board has sanctioned a strategic investment process which will be led by Kroll to allow the Club to be in the best position to take advantage of these opportunities and prepare our Club for future success. In the meantime, the ownership group would like to reaffirm its commitment to the Club as we are all excited for the new season. The Club will provide further updates once this process is concluded.
In the meantime, we invite you all to join us this pre-season and for that first fixture against Dagenham which is only three weeks away as another season commences at the Kuflink Stadium. We look forward to embarking on another journey together in the red and white of our wonderful football club.
