Club News:

U9 August Newsletter

22/8/10

WELCOME !!!
Welcome to August’s newsletter and our first as Under 9’s, which marks our transition from friendly to competitive action. Apologises the newsletter is a little later than usual but with good reason as there is loads to pack in, hence the newsletter is two pages this month !!

Registration Forms and Cost
In the next week we will be sending out 2010 – 2011 registration forms and paperwork for the league. This year the subscription will be £65 with a discount of £10 if you have another child at the club. This covers all the admin fees for the pitches and equipment for the training your children receive and all of this subscription goes to the club.

Parents Meeting Overview
I wanted to give you all some feedback from the parents meeting (thank you to all those that attended as I think it was a really useful discussion). For those that could not make it, an overview of the key points follows. If you’d like to discuss in more detail please call or email me / Steve as its your club as much as it ours:
Management Team – Next season I (Dave) will be taking on joint responsibility with Steve Kirk for the management of the team, this includes all admin, coaching, team selection etc. Steve Jones and John Wilson will also be assisting on the coaching side giving the benefit from their experience both as players and in terms of their previous involvement in youth football. Most importantly we all agree that we want to build a strong team with a great bunch of lads who can compete with the best teams around and above all have fun. We recognise the boys are at different stages of development and we believe during the 2010 – 2011 season we can challenge them all to improve

Discipline – Children and Parents / Coaches
In line with our principles set out in the original newsletter we will be looking to instil a little stronger discipline in the team as follows:

Players- As we move into U9’s and competitive football we will be looking to enforce a little more discipline in the kids both on match days and training. The emphasis will clearly be on fun but if we deem behaviour to be unacceptable we will introduce an appropriate measure such as “sin bin” if required.

Parents / Spectators / Coaches – As we move into U9’s we will require parents and coaches to follow certain guidelines such as the mark of respect (keeping parents spectators a small distance away from the pitches) and in the way we encourage our team without being “disrespectful”. You will have all seen during tournament season messages around touchline behaviour and whilst not deemed a major issue at our club we do need to be mindful of our behaviour on the kids.

Sponsor – We have been lucky enough to secure a new sponsor for the new league season, Just Jobs Norfolk (John Wilson’s) enterprise will be sponsoring games and a new kit for the league, we’d like to put on record our thanks for his kind gesture in this regard.

New Players and Friendlies – We have had a number of enquires from potential new players for the 2010 – 2011 season and as our stated aim is to look to building an 11 a side team for U11’s we welcome this. Our intention is to develop any of these new players through involving them in training and setting up a number of freindlies. We also intend to use these games for giving those boy’s we believe would benefit from extra match time that opportunity and also to allow for experimenting with boys in different positions. A number or parents have expressed an interest in boys playing in different positions and whilst we would not want to do this in “competitive” games until boys understood and were happy in these positions we are happy to do this in these games.

Newsletter – I asked if the newsletter was useful and would people still like to receive it. The consensus of the meeting was it was (although the colour was challenged, hence pink this month !!). Given this I will continue to produce, particularly the calendar. Any ideas etc are welcome for inclusion in future newsletters
Venue – We have been allocated Felthorpe as our training and match venue again for next season. This is mainly due to the fact that Hinks Meadow resurfacing has not been as successful as hoped due to the lack of rainfall over the past few months. If you would like to follow updates on Hinks follow this link http://taverhamfc.net/newshinks.html.

Training Times – Currently we are intending to run training on Thursday Evenings from September at 18.30 – 19.30 and every other Saturday when we are not involved in league games 09.00 – 10.30. This is subject to confirmation from the club that this fits with all other teams using Felthorpe

League Team – League matches this season will be on Sunday, most likely in the mornings. The league will be competitive and there will be a league table maintained (once a link is available we will send this to you all). At the parents meeting we reiterated the principles we agreed in the first newsletter regarding the team, for reference these are:

-All children will get a chance during the league season
-We will be looking to play children in their best positions in the league and looking for discipline in this
-Team selection against “stronger” teams will be matched by our strongest available line up where practicable
-Our ambition is to finish as high as we can in the league given the above principles, targeting a top 3 finish in the U9 league.

Anyone in attendance let me know if I missed anything !!!

Festival Competitions – How we did …..
As you will all be aware during this summer tournament season we have entered several competitions to give everyone in the squad a chance of playing matches at these events. The first 8 tournaments were all “festival” non-competitive and Steve and I are immensely proud of how all the boys have done. Also we would like to place on record a huge thanks to all parents for bringing their children to these tournaments (we know its not always easy) around the county and for supporting us in giving the lads some game exposure. We have played a number of teams of varying ability and held our own in all. The below illustrates the statistics of how we’ve done:

P49 W36 D7 L6 F96 A24 GD+72

Above all Steve and I would like to thank all the lads for their support, the banter, hard work and the enjoyment they have given us over the u8’s season and hope they have enjoyed it as much as we have enjoyed coaching them. St Benets U9’s Competition

This Sunday gone marked our first preseason tournament at St Benet’s Wasps in Beccles. It also marked our transfer into competitive football which meant the boys would only now receive awards if they make it to the finals of tournaments. I’m pleased to say the boys did unbelievably great. They easily won there league to progress into the quarter finals via four wins and a draw. The team then went on to win there quarter final against Bungay on a penalty shootout courtesy of a save from George and two fine strikes under pressure from James and Cameron. They beat Ipswich Valley Wanderers in the semis again courtesy of a fantastic team goal finished by Cameron and a great defensive performance from Jack, Ben and Harry. However, there were unlucky to lose a close hard thought final 1-0 to St Benets Wasps B, despite having the lion share of the possession the team were beaten by a breakaway goal and a fine strike. In all the team only conceded two goals, one unfortunate own goal and the one in the final but they should all be rightfully proud of their achievement in becoming runners up in their first competitive tournament.

Back to Squad Training As we said in the parents meeting notes on the 1st page we will be looking to secure and confirm our training times very soon. We will look to start official Felthorpe training in early September and we’re also considering in the winter months booking some more sessions at the FDC due to the nature of the surface and facilities. We welcome your views as this will involve a small charge, estimated £1 a session. We also acknowledge that next season we will need to think carefully around team selection and how we use league and friendly games to develop all the lads in the best way to ensure we continue to meet out overriding aim of having fun without destroying boys confidence. We realise this means we will not keep everyone 100% happy all of the time but please do talk to us if you have concerns as we do want to keep this group of lads together.

And Finally ….. Fund Raising and Dave’s Challenge –
The club has been unable to hold a tournament for the past two seasons due to the Hinks Meadow re-development, this has lead to a loss of approx £5,000 from the clubs funds which would have been raised via these events. The club has asked all aged groups to think of fund raising ideas to help plug this gap and we are no different. We are hoping to potentially arrange a race night we can split between our boys and the club for our part. However, also in a moment of stupidity I have offered to do a sponsored “whatever” you choose if we can raise £500 which Steve and I would like to use in organising a special event for our boys. So far waxing seems to be favourite (as I squirm !!). As always feedback on the newsletter, team matters or anything of concern is welcome via email, phone or face to face !! Up the Taverham U9’s !!!!