Senior Blues Meeting Recap: December 2025
A recap of the latest Senior Blues Meeting, which took place at the beginning of the month!
Another well attended meeting heard CFU Director Will Lamb describe the success of the commercial arm of the Club through multiple sponsorship routes, plus increasing use of the car park, and storage and laundrette facilities.
The physio room is also now available for hire whilst gym facilities are being renewed for a similar purpose. For matchdays, only one ball sponsorship and a handful of programme sponsorships are still available. It was good to hear that commercial income is running ahead of target and more inventive methods of “sweating our assets” are having a positive effect.
Our main speaker, Charlie Lambert entitled his talk, “Chester FC made my life” and described how, despite not being from the Chester area, watching Chester reserves vs Hyde United in 1962 at Sealand Road at the age of 12 transformed him from having no interest whatsoever in sport to a love for Chester FC and a career in sports journalism.
He would eventually progress from a print journalist to become a sports reporter for the BBC and unintentionally find himself covering the tragedies of both Heysel and Hillsborough. We heard of his early days as a trainee, reporting on Southport reserves for the local newspaper, and his progression to covering Everton and Liverpool for the Echo.
He gave us numerous examples of how interaction with clubs and managers had changed completely over the years and described the difference in the role of a local and a national football reporter. National journalists don’t get banned from the team bus for one thing.
After a long career in the media Charlie became Head of Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, from where he continued his links with Everton in various projects.
A true Blue, Charlie was involved in many meetings with supporters groups in some of our darker days eventually leading to the formation of the CFU, and regularly travels to the Deva from his Liverpool home.
An excellent talk, full of anecdotes from a true professional and plenty of material for a book (IMHO), which set everyone up nicely for our Christmas Meal in the Legends Lounge, expertly provided by Sara and her team.
Our guest of honour, the Lord Mayor of Chester, Cllr Sherin Akhtar spoke of her pride in serving as the City’s Lord Mayor, her delight in being invited to the Senior Blues and her interest in the Club.
In an entertaining speech, we also learned among other things of her chosen charities for her year in office, and the story behind her determination to learn to ride a bike.
A big thanks to all our members for their continued support. Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. COYB!
In order to allow our members full recovery time from their undoubted New Year excesses, our Next Meeting will take place on Friday Jan 9th when Jim Green will give us his annual update on all things Blue.