Youth Football Clubs {You Are Involved With}

[Stuart Dickson]

Kombi - I'm at a meeting on Monday. Hopefully I'll find out more and I'll send you a PM. The kit we've been offered is the Uhlsport Stream II - yellow top with a blue Uhlsport logo and trim. The demo shirt I saw was an XXS and it felt like a really thin material and not as good as our last kit - Umbro Chevron - but free is a price that I like very much. The Uhlsport catalogue is here

From what I see in our leagues the Adidas kit is like the Holy Grail. A cracking kit that keeps it shape, doesn't fade and just looks like quality to me. There's not so many examples of teams around us wearing Joma although the guys at Wishaw High School FP's say they've been delighted with their kit that they got from TTL in Glasgow. To be honest I prefer off the shelf kits rather than bespoke for a number of reasons that I won't go into on an open forum. I get the point about having a kit that will last more than 3 years though. Our Umbro kit was superb - and I think we were all really happy with it but the problems started last season when Nike sold the Umbro brand to Iconix and there was a real breakdown in supplies. Getting the odd shirt or shorts to replace an old worn one was becoming really tough. I've got prices on the Umbro kit stashed away somewhere, if I can trace the quotes I'll send on the prices we were paying in that PM.

Your mate has handled the situation with the player well, but he should still look at reporting the club that's taken the boy away for poaching. It's worth firing an early shot across the bows just so other clubs know you aren't a soft target. Don't get me wrong I'd never try to hold onto a boy who didn't want to play for us any more but I would expect everyone to handle things in the right manner. We're all volunteers and I think we deserve to be treated with a bit of courtesy to be honest.

[Stuart Dickson]

We got confirmation last night. The League Title has been sewn up four months before the scheduled end of the season. Wishaw Wycombe 98's Champions 2013-14. Now we can concentrate on the two cup tournaments.

[Kombi Buddie]

We got confirmation last night. The League Title has been sewn up four months before the scheduled end of the season. Wishaw Wycombe 98's Champions 2013-14. Now we can concentrate on the two cup tournaments.

great stuff. Congratulations

We go 9v9 next season so training today is a 9v9 match against a team from Galleywood {Chelmsford}

Time to start getting the boys used to off sides, bigger pitch etc.

[Stuart Dickson]

On Saturday I went through to Penicuik to watch my girlfriends nephew playing fun fours coached by her brother and brother in law. He's six years old and it was brilliant watching so many youngsters really enjoying the game in its purist form. I have to admit I was a bit sceptical when they introduced fours in Scotland but it seems perfect.

As it turned out their team lost 4 of their 5 games, drawing the other.

[Stuart Dickson]

Another Wishaw Wycombe 98's lad goes pro youth at Clyde - that's 11 gone direct from our team to pro youth football, and 13 if you include the two that started off at the 98's and dropped down to the 99's for a few months before being signed.

Also had news of lads who were with us who have gone pro youth. One - Robbie Leitch - signed a full time contract at Motherwell this week. Another - Adam Livingston - has become Motherwell Youth's longest serving player ever as he was given another year on a youth deal. Adam was also capped several times for Scottish Independent Schools this season. Rico Quitongo - Hamilton Accies - represented Scotland at Under 15's level. And Josh Payne - Airdrie - travelled to Malta with the North Lanarkshire squad and played against the Maltese national side and Valetta beating both. The best lad of the lot - Cammy Smith - at Dunfermline may be coming back to Wishaw Wycombe because Dunfermline pro youth is due to merge with East Fife, Cowdenbeath and Raith Rovers, sounds strange but that's what his Dad was telling me yesterday. The lad is very highly rated.

Also heard another lad who played a few games for us a few years back is on trial at St Mirren. He's got one of the worst attitude problems I've ever seen

Edited May 26, 2014 by Stuart Dickson

[Kombi Buddie]

great stuff for the lads from WWW being offered pro youth deals, I hope they all do well at their respective clubs.

I mentioned before {I think} that my mates nephew was signed by Charlton when he was 8, he's just turned 18 & recently signed a 2 year extension. I mention this, as in another thread somewhere, folks are discussing St Mirren contracts being offered to youth players coming through should be longer than the 1 year deals they are being offered.

I watched Dillon play for Charlton U18's when he was 16 & thought the stand out player in that match was Charlton' left back Morgan Fox. A cracking player that reminded me of Gary Neville, he too, has just signed a 3 year deal at Charlton & that IMO, is the way for clubs to demonstrate faith in their youth set ups.

Back to trials of this season & I am glad it is over. Lost our keeper late November time {his dad was an arse & I was glad to see the back of him {the dad} but we never managed to find a replacement keeper so conceded too many soft goals & ended up on the end of a few batterings. My lad has expressed an interest in going in goal so we now have 4 months before the new season.

Hopefully, next season will be better than this.

Managed to secure sponsors for new kits for next season, both home & away. Going with Joma for next season for both.

Yellow shirt, royal blue shorts & yellow socks for the home as this is the clubs colours and this morning ordered

Pisa12 shirt in Sky/White stripes with Navy shorts & Navy Socks which to the players & their parents will say, Argentina.

To me, it says Arthurlie :-)

Next season is 9v9 & up to 16x7 goals. Looking forward to the change as the boys had outgrown the 7v7 pitch.

Here's hoping for a better season.

[windae cleaner]

9x9 should be the way up here also after 7x7

[Stuart Dickson]

9x9 should be the way up here also after 7x7

It is. I saw on the SYFA Facebook page yesterday that they have agreed to trial 9v9 starting in the summer. I'm not too sure how it will work up here. If it's full sized football pitches and 11 a side goals it's just going to be pretty rubbish I reckon. Pitch rentals will still cost the same but the cost will be split amongst fewer players. If it's not then I would assume all the clubs are going to have a big outlay for goals and for storage for them. Maybe Mark Wotte will have put more thought into this than he has done previous changes but we'll need to wait and see.

[Stuart Dickson]

Very proud.

[windae cleaner]

It is. I saw on the SYFA Facebook page yesterday that they have agreed to trial 9v9 starting in the summer. I'm not too sure how it will work up here. If it's full sized football pitches and 11 a side goals it's just going to be pretty rubbish I reckon. Pitch rentals will still cost the same but the cost will be split amongst fewer players. If it's not then I would assume all the clubs are going to have a big outlay for goals and for storage for them. Maybe Mark Wotte will have put more thought into this than he has done previous changes but we'll need to wait and see.

It's a smaller pitch than your usual 11 a side and smaller goals also.

England have been doing it for a while

I find it's a big jump from 7s to 11s and the pitch is too big and playing football goes out the window.

All the good habits picked up at 7s go out the window as teams tend to punt the ball hard as possible to get up the pitch quicker at 11s

[Kombi Buddie]

Down here, pitch dimensions are

7v7 - 60 x 40 yards

9v9 - 80 x 50 yards

11v11 - 100 x 60 minimum

my team U10's have now outgrown the mini pitch. Now that our season has ended, we'll get cracking on the boys learning offsides and get them used to the bigger pitch and having 2 more players on the pitch.

I applied to The Football Foundation for funding to start new teams and received notification this afternoon that the application has secured £4500 {payable over 3 seasons} for the club to start 3 girls football teams over the next 2 seasons.

[windae cleaner]

Down here, pitch dimensions are

7v7 - 60 x 40 yards

9v9 - 80 x 50 yards

11v11 - 100 x 60 minimum

my team U10's have now outgrown the mini pitch. Now that our season has ended, we'll get cracking on the boys learning offsides and get them used to the bigger pitch and having 2 more players on the pitch.

I applied to The Football Foundation for funding to start new teams and received notification this afternoon that the application has secured £4500 {payable over 3 seasons} for the club to start 3 girls football teams over the next 2 seasons.

There you go

We are even lagging behind countries in the same island

[Stuart Dickson]

Hmm, I don't think I'm convinced with the 9v9 though. Perhaps it's just my ignorance about what is planned but from memory when our kids went from 7 to 11 the issue wasn't the size of the park or the number of players, it was the size of the goals that made matches ridiculous.

We took a while to adapt to the 11 a side park initially struggling to score goals but after a few months we were scoring for fun, and were passing the ball around really smoothly and well finding plenty of space. Where we would get caught was that we'd have so much possession and territorial advantage that our defenders would push more and more forward and the opponents would simply launch the ball over the top and look to get in behind us. We persevered and the following season we were one of the top teams in Scotland. The hoofing of the ball does become more prevalent but defenders have to learn to defend against the long ball too.

[Stuart Dickson]

I'm buzzing today. I was at the clubs Sportsmans Dinner last night where the former Forest, Everton and Leeds striker Duncan McKenzie and John Rowbotham were the speakers. Both were absolutely brilliant.

I was sitting next to our kit supplier from Uhlsport and I was proudly telling him about how a few years back we'd started to encourage our older kids to come in and help with coaching and how one of the lads had done so well he had landed up in demand by a few pro youth clubs wanting him to work with their goalkeepers. I must have struck some sort of chord with him because at the end of the night he offered the lad a three year kit deal similar to the ones that they offer some professional goalkeeper. Really pleased for the lad.

[Kombi Buddie]

just picked up the trophies for our club presentation night tonight.

still wondering whether having it on the night when England play is a good or a bad thing. Only time will tell.

At training today, all the players were buzzing as they debated who would win Parents Player & Managers Player.

The parents were buzzing as they debated JD & Coke or white wine spritzers.

11pm ko for the England game & the bars are staying open for it. Carnage is sure to ensue. I cannae wait

[Kombi Buddie]

Stuart, been talking with the chairman of Romford FC {they play in Ryman League 1 North} and we are going to work together to put on a sportmans dinner at the end of the season. Liking your comments about your speakers. Seems speakers can be quite hit & miss so will need to tread carefully there.

Can I ask, how do your club source/book their speakers?

On another note, having a tally up of players at training tomorrow night. Looks like i'll be starting a 3rd team for the coming season, they will very much be a development team. A bunch of lads that other teams continually reject so I am keeping them training with me and enter them 9v9 in the Echo League whilst my 2 other teams will play in the Chelmsford League.

Got 2 of the dads helping me out now which Is a godsend, 1 has contacts at West Ham & intends getting some West Ham coaches over to take a session or 3 through the season. I am happy with that.

also, got another 6 girls coming training this Saturday so looks like I will start an U12 Girls team next season too. Happy days and I've got a fella who is happy to coach them with some support. As I said, Happy days.

Lastly, going to speak with the parents at training to plant the seed for a wee end of season trip & tourney and will get ideas of costs in the coming week or 2.

Camber Sands in June 1/2 term tends to be a favourite down here but I'm going to look for somewhere a wee bit different {to the rest}

[Stuart Dickson]

Stuart, been talking with the chairman of Romford FC {they play in Ryman League 1 North} and we are going to work together to put on a sportmans dinner at the end of the season. Liking your comments about your speakers. Seems speakers can be quite hit & miss so will need to tread carefully there.

Can I ask, how do your club source/book their speakers?

On another note, having a tally up of players at training tomorrow night. Looks like i'll be starting a 3rd team for the coming season, they will very much be a development team. A bunch of lads that other teams continually reject so I am keeping them training with me and enter them 9v9 in the Echo League whilst my 2 other teams will play in the Chelmsford League.

Got 2 of the dads helping me out now which Is a godsend, 1 has contacts at West Ham & intends getting some West Ham coaches over to take a session or 3 through the season. I am happy with that.

also, got another 6 girls coming training this Saturday so looks like I will start an U12 Girls team next season too. Happy days and I've got a fella who is happy to coach them with some support. As I said, Happy days.

Lastly, going to speak with the parents at training to plant the seed for a wee end of season trip & tourney and will get ideas of costs in the coming week or 2.

Camber Sands in June 1/2 term tends to be a favourite down here but I'm going to look for somewhere a wee bit different {to the rest}

They are hit and miss. Last year Andy Goram was booked to speak - according to the guy we book them through he went off on a bender and didn't turn up on the night. Fortunately the other speaker - John Gahagan - did a great job filling in doing his own bit and a bit for Goram as well. We book ours through a guy called John McKelvie who does a lot of after dinner speaking himself. He generally keeps the club right and also helps source some auction prizes, as well as doing a great job of squeezing as much money as he can out the punters who bid on the items too.

There's a lot of ex pros on the circuit Kombi. I'd imagine Frank McAvennie would be one of the best for down your way though. He's obviously got strong attachments with the area - I don't know but doesn't he still have a house in Gidea Park? He was absolutely superb when he did ours a few years back. The format we generally use is to have an ex pro tell stories about his career. McAvennie, Rough, Alan Kennedy and Duncan McKenzie have done ours. And then have someone who's more of a comedian. John Gahagan and John Rowbothom did that role perfectly. We also had a Paisley man - Sandy Strang - who did one for us and he was really good as well. I guess the best thing to do though would be to talk to other clubs who have Sportsmans Dinners, or talk to any businessmen you know who will probably have been to loads of these things and get recommendations off them.

Well done on the growth within the club Kombi. Sometimes it can be a leap of faith doing what you did but the fact that it's growing is a strong endorsement of what you are doing and how you are doing it. Links with senior clubs haven't really worked for us up here but it might be different down in England where the is a strong proactive movement for community involvement. Clubs up here tend to do things to tick boxes and sending coaches out to help with youth development doesn't earn them money and it doesn't tick boxes so most don't really bother. You tend to find here that clubs will be all over you offering you all sorts when they've spotted a player or two they are interested in, but they'll drop you like a stone often not fulfilling their promises as soon as the boy signs for them. It's sad really and it tends to make a mockery of the various supposed "Community Schemes" that take funding from the Scottish Government but give as little as possible to grass roots football.

A trip and tourney Good luck with that. I haven't been brave enough to try that. I can't imagine me enjoying four days in the company of other people's kids. We've had loads of teams do it though and it seems to be a great way to get the parents more closely involved. We've had teams go to Preston and Blackpool and a more recent trend has seen a few going over to Belgium. If you want I can try and find out more details from those who have done it.

Edited July 7, 2014 by Stuart Dickson

[Kombi Buddie]

Gents,

been speaking with some of the parents of my U11's team tonight and they've asked if we can do a tour at the end of the

coming season. Seemed only natural to chuck Scotland into the mix when they were talking of prospective destinations. They seemed quite taken by the idea but want to check out prices & timings etc. The alternative, Camber Sands is 2 hours drive for us & it's a popular destination for football tourneys/tours whereas Glasgow is 7 hours drive but there is a few lads on this forum & thread who are involved in youth football who might be interested in our team visiting.

If we can get organised to come to Scotland, do you have teams at your club who could be interested in a game against Romford Borough Youth FC U11's? {birth dates between 01/09/2003 & 31/08/2004. Going into Primary 7 in September}

My initial thought to explore is

Match on Saturday Morning then get to an SPL match {St Mirren} in the afternoon.

Match on Sunday Morning & possibly get to another match in the afternoon.

Head back south on Monday morning.

Dates not yet decided but obviously would be subject to pitch availability.

Thoughts / Suggestions much appreciated.

I could arrange matches against a few different clubs down this way if, you fancied bringing your team down to London too on an end of season tour too.

Cheers.

G..

Edited July 29, 2014 by Kombi Buddie

[paisley bud]

I would be happy to help you source out games. I am involved in a local club and we have teams at the age groups that you highlight - i also have contact thruoghout the district having been invovled in the running of the league. Accommodation may be an option at the University Campus, the Lapwing lodge or through the guides association as they have a lodge in Kilmalcolm area. Alternatively, loads of hotel options that you will be aware of.

[Kombi Buddie]

Paisley Bud,

Many thanks.

I would be interested to know more about the University Campus for accommodation. Have you any details or able to point me in the right direction.

For me, being close to Paisley/Glasgow opens up the travel options. The parents who suggested the idea have gone off to explore Driving/Flying & Rail options.

I suspect we would drive up but if we were to fly up or come by rail, being central would place us in public transport distance rather than having to hire cars/minibus.

I will be looking at the local hotels, preferably with a pool.

If we do manage to get this going, i'll be keen to make sure we get to a St Mirren match.

Which club are you involved with?

Cheers.

G..

[Stuart Dickson]

Gents,

been speaking with some of the parents of my U11's team tonight and they've asked if we can do a tour at the end of the

coming season. Seemed only natural to chuck Scotland into the mix when they were talking of prospective destinations. They seemed quite taken by the idea but want to check out prices & timings etc. The alternative, Camber Sands is 2 hours drive for us & it's a popular destination for football tourneys/tours whereas Glasgow is 7 hours drive but there is a few lads on this forum & thread who are involved in youth football who might be interested in our team visiting.

If we can get organised to come to Scotland, do you have teams at your club who could be interested in a game against Romford Borough Youth FC U11's? {birth dates between 01/09/2003 & 31/08/2004. Going into Primary 7 in September}

My initial thought to explore is

Match on Saturday Morning then get to an SPL match {St Mirren} in the afternoon.

Match on Sunday Morning & possibly get to another match in the afternoon.

Head back south on Monday morning.

Dates not yet decided but obviously would be subject to pitch availability.

Thoughts / Suggestions much appreciated.

I could arrange matches against a few different clubs down this way if, you fancied bringing your team down to London too on an end of season tour too.

Cheers.

G..

St Mirren match? You'll put the poor kids off for life.

Kombi, I'm sure Wishaw Wycombe Under 11's would be happy to get a game sorted if you were taking the road up. It's not so convenient for you if you fly or take the train though. Other options might be to look at some of the more popular tournaments up here - at the end of the season the Carbrain one in Cumbernauld was excellent this year. I think the Glasgow City one is in August but that's usually pretty good as well with teams coming over from Ireland.

[Kombi Buddie]

Stuart,

Thanks for the reply

I know but amongst the team I have West Ham, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, even got 2 Liverpool supporters so they are beyond redemption.

One of the mums asked if we can go to Celtic Park. Talk about stab me in the heart..

Never thought about a tournament in Scotland, will have a wee google search for them & see the story.

As they want to keep the costs down, I think driving will be the chosen mode of transport which obviously makes WWW very do-able.

[paisley bud]

Paisley Bud,

Many thanks.

I would be interested to know more about the University Campus for accommodation. Have you any details or able to point me in the right direction.

For me, being close to Paisley/Glasgow opens up the travel options. The parents who suggested the idea have gone off to explore Driving/Flying & Rail options.

I suspect we would drive up but if we were to fly up or come by rail, being central would place us in public transport distance rather than having to hire cars/minibus.

I will be looking at the local hotels, preferably with a pool.

If we do manage to get this going, i'll be keen to make sure we get to a St Mirren match.

Which club are you involved with?

Cheers.

G..

I am invovled in Langcraigs FC - I do not have a contact for the university, however may have a person who knows a person. I will get back to you with information. Im guessing you are talking around April/May time?

[Kombi Buddie]

Paisley Bud, I'll speak with the parents again on Saturday & give you a shout of roughly when they'd like to go.

Graeme

[Stuart Dickson]

Wishaw Wycombe 98's won their first match of the new season today. 2-1 away from home against a highly fancied Blantyre side who have reportedly filled their team full of ex pro youth players for this season.