Saturday's 2-1 victory over Plymouth sent the Stevenage faithful home happy and marked a successful end to our second Kids Takeover.
After three budding young journalists visited the Bragbury End training ground on Thursday afternoon to ask Teddy Sheringham and the players some amusing questions, Saturday saw the turn of eight more youngsters to experience life in a number of different match day roles.
Up first was 9-year old Oliver Chinn who joined kit man Tommo in the morning to help prepare the home dressing room for the players. After putting out the shirts, shorts, socks and towels, Oliver helped put out all the players' (many) boots before being interviewed by Sky Sports News.
Oliver with Tommo
Kai Pitts-Lewis was our Mini Manager for the Day. After contributing to the match day programme earlier in the week with his own column, the nine-year old grew into his role with great confidence and insisted on being called 'gaffer' throughout the day!
After visiting the home dressing room and getting autographs and photos from the Stevenage players, Kai took a seat in Teddy Sheringham's office and calmly ran through his proposed starting XI with the manager. The youngster had certainly done his research and, despite a number of changes from the previous weekend's team, correctly predicted 10 of the 11 starters, leading to some impressed looks from the management team in front of the Sky Sports News cameras.
Kai runs through his team news with Teddy
Toby Dale-Smith (9) was selected as our Junior Safety Officer and started his role with a tour of the Control Room. After sitting through a pre-match stewards meeting, Toby had the vital job of opening the stadium with an important safety announcement - all recorded once again by Sky Sports News. After this Toby helped welcome supporters into the ground before returning to watch the game with his family.
Toby attends a pre-match meeting with the match officials
12-year old Thomas Hawkins enjoyed his time as Chairman for the Day and cheered Boro on from the Director's Box with his family. He took time out from his half-time hospitality to be interviewed on the stadium PA and said he was confident that Boro would go on and win the game, which they did.
Thomas gets interviewed by Jamie at half-time
Charli Willis (11) joined the Stevenage media team for the day and enjoyed a look at what goes on behind-the-scenes on match days. After collecting her 'access all areas' press pass Charli assisted press officer Mark and media assistant Dan in a number of pre-match media tasks, before watching the game from the press box and helping with the post-match interviews.
Regular match day PA announcer Jamie had 9-year old Owen Myles assisting him on the microphones on Saturday afternoon. The confident youngster helped interview the mascots, read out the team news and proved a lively and fun addition to our team.
Owen helps read the teams out
As part of our Kids Takeover we also invited young fans from Plymouth Argyle to join in with our special day. 7-year old Oliver Jones enjoyed his day as an away mascot, enjoying a kick-around on the pitch with our Foundation team and helping to lead his beloved Pilgrims out for the start of the game.
Oliver enjoyed his day as one of our mascots
A very dapper looking 9-year old Sam Burke was our Away Director for the Day. After watching his side go into the break 2-0 down, young Sam proved the highlight of the half-time break, telling Jamie and Owen on the PA very confidently that his side were more than capable of a comeback, provoking a huge cheer and round of applause from the 854 travelling away fans in the South Stand.
Away Director for the Day Sam gets interviewed at half-time
Dave Toyn, Marketing & Communications Manager, said, "Our second Kids Takeover was another huge success. After our first event back in February we wanted to throw our doors open once again and make this Takeover bigger and better, so introduced even more exclusive pre-match roles. All 11 young fans involved over the two days had a great time and I'd like to thank them for their excellent work. Some of the feedback we've received has been amazing and this is certainly an event we'll look to repeat once again.
"I'd also like to thank my colleagues at Plymouth Argyle for joining in with the fun and promoting our Kids Takeover among their fans. Young Pilgrims Oliver and Sam were great additions to our day and left having really enjoyed themselves, despite seeing their team lose 2-1. It just goes to show that we can always help provide magical, memorable moments off the pitch, no matter what happens on it."
Check out our Facebook page to see a whole host of photos from Saturday's Kids Takeover event and see our video below for Thursday's press conference at Bragbury End.
Videos
Watch Riley, Matthew and Charlie in action at Bragbury End in the first part of our Kids Takeover