LAST week, we held our annual meeting with, once again, satisfactory accounts to be presented to shareholders.

It was my 10th meeting as chairman and they have certainly got easier as the years have gone by, partly because of reasonable success on the pitch but, more significantly, because of the state of the club's finances.

It was the fourth consecutive year that we have reported a profit.

In the greater scheme of football, £162,000 does not seem an awful lot. But in today's football climate, where many clubs, particularly in the lower leagues, are really struggling financially and, almost weekly, we hear of clubs on the brink of administration, then our result is very satisfactory.

The way the figures are looking, we should, at the end of our financial year in May, make it five seasons in a row for trading in the black.

There has been no secret to it, it has just been based on hard work by the people involved in the club.

It has been significant that there have been no demarcation lines in the jobs that people are asked to do.

I have administration and coaching staff who, whatever needs doing, are prepared to do it.

Any successful organisation needs that togetherness and team spirit - and I am not just talking about the team on the field. That has certainly manifested itself over the last two or three seasons.

Everyone has worked together to push the club forward.

We do get criticised from time to time, mostly by people who do not know the facts, about PR or the commercial department.

I sometimes look at the second page of programmes of the different clubs we visit and see the amount of staff that these clubs have. It does not altogether surprise me that clubs get into financial difficulties.

What we need now are some positive steps in terms of development at the two ends of the ground.

It has been very difficult to get anything positive because there has been so much doubt about what we could do.

The ideas that we wanted to bring forward for commercial development at both ends now seem to be incorporated in plans for the cattle market.

Among the business opportunities were a fitness centre, hotel or cinema but it seems that they are all earmarked for the cattle-market development.

Attracting the right partner for our development is very much down to the Richardsons at present.

I know that they are working hard to attract the sort of businesses that will, firstly, enable us to pay off the debt to the Richardsons and, secondly, give us facilities that are more in keeping with what supporters demand as well as, finally, making the club's longer-term financial prospects more secure.