The Chairman Lorraine Rogers' programme notes against Luton Town...

Welcome to Prenton Park for the first of our Friday night home matches this season. Last season we had seven home Friday night games and this season we have five. Although many fans enjoy the start-of-the-weekend atmosphere under the floodlights, others find Friday nights hard to attend with work or other evening commitments and some suggest they're less child-friendly than a Saturday afternoon kick off. It goes to show that you can't please everyone - especially in football!

However, whatever the merits or otherwise of this fixture time, the truth is that most of the games are moved following Police advice because of other pressures on their resources on Saturdays such as high profile Premier League games rather than at the whim of the club. So if you are one of those supporters who are pleased with the number of Friday night games, the board can't take the credit. It is perhaps one of the consequences of having other clubs on our doorstep.

I came away from Carlisle feeling proud - not just with the result but with our unbeaten record on the road and the manner of the three results. There were no weak links or costly errors - a big improvement on last season when we only won five matches on the road all season. We've had a good start to the season and, although it's early days, Ronnie and the team deserve credit.

The fixture list often throws up strange patterns of fixtures and this season we seem to have an unusually high number of long distance away matches in the first quarter of the season. This makes the victories even more rewarding and I'm especially pleased for the fantastic travelling supporters. If you don't get to many away games you might be surprised by how vocal our support is away from home. What we lack in numbers we more than make up for in animation and noise level.

We announced earlier this week that we had negotiated a successful deal with the American group, Mirabilis, with which we entered into a £900,000 loan facility agreement last season.

The Club received approximately £150,000, but requests for the balance of the loan were refused.

Under English law Tranmere would have had to create a legal precedent in order to force Mirabilis to advance the remaining payments. This would have been costly and risky. As there is no legal precedent, the Club's chances of success could not be gauged.

They will in effect give us a gift of £150,000 as we won't have to repay any of the amount we have borrowed. In addition, we won't pay any interest on the money we have borrowed for the last year and the charge over some of our land has been released.

Although it's not turned out as we originally expected, we have ended up with a very good deal. It's rare to get a gift of this significance in football - and it brings the matter to a close. The fact that we entered into an arrangement with a US group in the first place illustrates that we are taking part in the increasing globalisation of English football and developing contacts with overseas groups. Whether we like it or not, this is the direction the game is moving in and we need to investigate the opportunities for Tranmere.

A consequence of the deal with Mirabilis is that we have widened our profile and network of contacts in the States. With Man United, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Oldham in US ownership and with the arrival of David Beckham in the States, it seems that the appetite for US investment in English football is at an all time high.

I hope you enjoy the game and will be back at Prenton Park when we play Northampton Town on Saturday, 29 September.