Youth Football Clubs {You Are Involved With}

[iTony]

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.

That's them scored more goals than St. Mirren have in the league so far Stuart.

[Kombi Buddie]

boys got off to a flyer in their 1st 9v9 game with our left back scoring a hat trick inside the last 10 minutes to secure a 6-2 win.

[Stuart Dickson]

Thats brilliant Kombi. A hat-trick scoring left back. I'll need to tell my son. He thought he was doing well with his four goals from open play last season.

We've had a bitty start to the season. We've got 10 points from 6 games which has been enough to put us top of a very tight league, but one of our two defeats so far was a humiliating doing from Mill United Colts - 9-0 at home. Shocking stuff.

However we got some good news today. One of the lads who played for us from the age of 8 before signing pro youth at Dunfermline has come back to sign for us and what a player this boy is. He's 16 years old and has been working with Stephen Wright at Dunfermline for the last three years. Around Christmas last season he was subject of an offer from Manchester City but his parents - wisely - opted to keep him here until he had done his exams. At the start of this season he was told that Dunfermline's pro youth set up was merging with East Fife, Cowdenbeath and Raith Rovers under some Fife Council banner. Within that set up there was pressure brought to bear - probably from the council - that the youth set up should only be for Fife Council residents. Camy waited to find out his fate. He'd been travelling with Craig Dargo spending days on day release training with the first team squad and working with John Potter and two weeks ago he was approached to find out if he'd be interested in signing a full time one year deal with Dunfermline. His parents advised him that he shouldn't sign and that he should instead stick in at school so he's come back to Wishaw Wycombe. I don't know how long he'll be here. Partick Thistle, Morton, Clyde, Queens Park, Airdrie, Hamilton and Motherwell are all supposed to be keen to sign him but right now I don't care. He's back in our yellow shirt and we'll have some real class in the heart of our defence for the Scottish Cup tie on Sunday.

[Kombi Buddie]

Sounds good for the team Stuart.

we got battered week in week out last season after our goalie left. Alternated Ashley {left back} and my son Innes {right back} in goal and whilst they done their best, are not keepers.

Got a new lad come over at the start of the summer holidays and was asked by his mum "please don't mess him about, his last club told him he is shit" the lad is mustard & played his 1st game for us last week. Some cracking saves made, diving at players feet & switched on to distribute the ball quickly.

I think he kicked the ball twice all match & they were goal kicks.

Got a lad, thinks he should play striker {wants the glory of scoring goals}, he got 2 from central midfield last week and will score a bucket load by bursting through from midfield.

Stern test this Sunday, when we play Hannakins Farm, who always put out good teams. Lost 1-0 to them in a tourney inthe summer but have since added the keeper and a cracking midfielder.

This season, we've bridged the gap with the senior team quite a bit & now sharing the same website http://www.romfordfc.com

Took my U11 yellows team over 2 weeks ago for the Romford FC match v Tilbury. Manager of Romford FC took the team out on the pitch and done a 1 hour training session with them before the match. Boys loved it.

small thing but every player at Romford Borough Youth FC has been given a season ticket for Romford FC. The hope is that the players want to go but take an adult with them who pays to get in. At £8, it's great value compared to the £50 - £70 for the cheap seats at West Ham or Arsenal.

Edited September 18, 2014 by Kombi Buddie

[Stuart Dickson]

Sounds good for the team Stuart.

we got battered week in week out last season after our goalie left. Alternated Ashley {left back} and my son Innes {right back} in goal and whilst they done their best, are not keepers.

Got a new lad come over at the start of the summer holidays and was asked by his mum "please don't mess him about, his last club told him he is shit" the lad is mustard & played his 1st game for us last week. Some cracking saves made, diving at players feet & switched on to distribute the ball quickly.

I think he kicked the ball twice all match & they were goal kicks.

Got a lad, thinks he should play striker {wants the glory of scoring goals}, he got 2 from central midfield last week and will score a bucket load by bursting through from midfield.

Stern test this Sunday, when we play Hannakins Farm, who always put out good teams. Lost 1-0 to them in a tourney inthe summer but have since added the keeper and a cracking midfielder.

This season, we've bridged the gap with the senior team quite a bit & now sharing the same website http://www.romfordfc.com

Took my U11 yellows team over 2 weeks ago for the Romford FC match v Tilbury. Manager of Romford FC took the team out on the pitch and done a 1 hour training session with them before the match. Boys loved it.

small thing but every player at Romford Borough Youth FC has been given a season ticket for Romford FC. The hope is that the players want to go but take an adult with them who pays to get in. At £8, it's great value compared to the £50 - £70 for the cheap seats at West Ham or Arsenal.

That's brilliant Kombi. It's one of the things I've always been keen to see happen in our area. It's all very well and good developing stars of the future, but it's just as important to have links with local amateur and semi pro teams to ensure that the lads who have played their way right through your club have somewhere to progress to. It's great to see you saying that the manager took them in a training session. I don't think that's a small thing at all. It should be a two way thing. The senior club putting in the effort will be rewarded even if the kids in your team only take a passing interest by going along to watch them.

[Kombi Buddie]

a cracking game today, 2 goals in the last 5 minutes was too little too late as we had gifted Hannakins Farm a 3 goal advantage with 20 minutes to play.

2 more minutes we'd have had the draw but it wasn't to be. Left back started the fightback with a fine goal, his 4th in 2 matches.

Thinking of playing him at centre forward next week.

Despite getting beat, really enjoyed todays game as both teams went for it & there was plenty cracking play from both teams.

[Kombi Buddie]

Gents,

Been a couple of years since this thread started & just wondering how your team's & clubs are getting on?

G..

[Stuart Dickson]

Gents,

Been a couple of years since this thread started & just wondering how your team's & clubs are getting on?

G..

Ach, alright I guess. We're mid table this season but I'm not enjoying it anywhere near as much as I have done. It seems to be a constant battle this season with the turnover in the squad as high as it's ever been as leaving players seem to fall into two categories - the ones who have girlfriends who don't like them going to bed early on a Saturday for their football, and those who have Mum's and Dad's who would rather they studied all day on a Sunday instead of playing football. Under 17's is a really shite age I reckon. I guess we're one of the lucky ones though. We've still got 16 players. Since the season started our league has seen four teams fold.

I was through at Dalkeith today watching my girlfriends nephew playing in the fun fours for Penicuik and that was brilliant. Her brother is one of the coaches and he was saying that the SYFA have asked them to go to 5-a-side from next season to include a goalkeeper. They are in the 2006's age group

[Stuart Dickson]

We beat Falkirk FCF yesterday in the Regional Cup 5-1. Bo'ness United in the next round

[Kombi Buddie]

Stuart,

great stuff on the cup win.

They've gone 5v5 down here for U7's & U8's.

The U10's & under is now festival football as they call it. Results don't & won't be published until they get to U16's or so.

I'm not convinced by the value of that as I don't know anyone who doesn't want to see how they are getting on league wise. It might stop the migration of a teams better players to teams perceived to be better.

I have had to rebuild my team every year as I continually lose my best players to academy standard teams as parents aspirations for their sons are chased.

This year, I have got the best squad I've had since we started.

We have a team 40 places above us in the league in our next cup match on December 14th, that'll give us a marker for where we are at, as our opponents are all academy standard players. Looking forward to this game.

[Stuart Dickson]

Stuart,

great stuff on the cup win.

They've gone 5v5 down here for U7's & U8's.

The U10's & under is now festival football as they call it. Results don't & won't be published until they get to U16's or so.

I'm not convinced by the value of that as I don't know anyone who doesn't want to see how they are getting on league wise. It might stop the migration of a teams better players to teams perceived to be better.

I have had to rebuild my team every year as I continually lose my best players to academy standard teams as parents aspirations for their sons are chased.

This year, I have got the best squad I've had since we started.

We have a team 40 places above us in the league in our next cup match on December 14th, that'll give us a marker for where we are at, as our opponents are all academy standard players. Looking forward to this game.

Non competitive till Under 16's? Am I reading that right? I'm probably old school and all that but I can't see any value in that at all. Everyone knows who the good teams are and who the not so good team are in these groupings. If your team regularly gets thumped the kids can work out that they aren't very good, and if they get thumped more heavily by one team than all the rest then they know that's the best team.

Kombi, what's your local area like? When I first got involved at Wishaw Wycombe we had a similar problem. There were three teams in Wishaw all competing for the same players and I'd often hear stories of lads from the other teams being told by their coaches to try to persuade some of our players to go join them - it still happens, even during matches. The way I managed to reverse that was we recruited boys from our Under 17's team. The goalkeeper there was a lad called David Earl who was friends with my son. I asked him if he fancied doing a bit of coaching and when he said yes I got the club to book him on a coaching pathway to become a goalkeeping specialist. My son also got involved. He was a level one Scottish Athletics coach already so we paid to get him his Level 2 there and to get his football coaching qualifications too. And then we got a third lad in who was slightly older. He was an American Football player and had been out in the US for a year playing College Football on a scholarship. He'd come back and was studying Sports Science at Stirling Uni and we got him down to work with our players testing out what he was learning. I think he did his dissertation based around work he was doing with us - although I can't say that for certain. We also tapped into something one of our players was into. He was a kick boxing world champion of some sort - he'd won belts in Madrid and in Mexico by the time he was 14. We asked him to check with his coach and see if he'd be interested in helping us out too and within weeks we had all our boys down at his gym working on their fitness and agility.

One of the parents of a lad in the team a year down from us was a keen photographer. I was quite friendly with him so any time we were doing something a bit different we'd take him along and he'd get a pile of photos that I could publish on the website and the local newspaper was delighted to carry stories like that as well especially since I'd write the article and supply pictures. Within weeks the trend had reversed and instead of other clubs players trying to tap up our lads they were phoning me asking for trials.

Those young coaches have all moved on now but the reputation of the team has stuck. David Earl is 21 now and is coaching the goalkeepers at Airdrie. He's worked with the first team as well there. Last June at the clubs Sportsmans Dinner I landed up sitting next to the our kit supplier from Uhlsport with David and his Dad at my table. I don't know if someone had designed it that way or it was just chance but when I introduced everyone I went into a bit of a boast about the young keeper coach and before the end of the night the guy from Uhlsport had offered him a kit sponsorship deal giving him a budget to spend every year on goalkeeper kit. I wasn't angling for it at all, I was just telling him about one of the successes at the club but I was delighted for young David anyway. My son still comes down to the club training nights occasionally but he's landed a job with NLC earning £14 per hour as an athletics coach and the Sports Scientist now lives in Germany and has been working with a number of professional sports clubs over there. It's been a decent example and the spin off now that my team are Under 17's is that quite a few of them are now going through their coaching qualifications working with teams in the lower age groups - tonight for example we've got four down working with our Under 5's. I can't remember what they call the group but they'll be down helping the older coaches that run the team.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Stuart Dickson

[Kombi Buddie]

I don't see any value in it either but apparently, it's all part of the master plan to get the English national team more competitive.

Having players up to U16's not seeing their results or league positions published is supposed to be encouraging {allegedly}. I doubt it will stop he migration of the more accomplished players at whatever age group to the teams with managers who's ideal is to trial boys and build the best team he can. For me, it's about encouraging children to play football and enjoy it.

I'll be starting another team {my 5th team} next season as there are that many children coming over looking to play football. now have 30 odd players training with me an am taking calls weekly of parents looking for a team for their son or daughter.

My original team started as U7's and entered the league at U8's and I have started teams at U9's, U11's & U12 Girls. The new team will be U12's.

[windae cleaner]

Big debate last night on the radio about 9 a side

Seems the majority of clubs are for it but those in the SFA and SYFA are against it

No surprises there considering the amount of dinosaurs running our game

[Stuart Dickson]

Big debate last night on the radio about 9 a side

Seems the majority of clubs are for it but those in the SFA and SYFA are against it

No surprises there considering the amount of dinosaurs running our game

I'm not sure how to feel about this one.

The obvious benefit to 9-a-side football is that each player will presumably get more time on the ball and a bit more space on a football park to express themselves and to develop their skills in a match environment. However the other side to that is that it means either fewer kids taking part in the sport, or a need to recruit many more volunteer coaches - and coach recruitment and retention is one of the most difficult things in running a football club.

[windae cleaner]

I'm not sure how to feel about this one.

The obvious benefit to 9-a-side football is that each player will presumably get more time on the ball and a bit more space on a football park to express themselves and to develop their skills in a match environment. However the other side to that is that it means either fewer kids taking part in the sport, or a need to recruit many more volunteer coaches - and coach recruitment and retention is one of the most difficult things in running a football club.

England do it and i can see the benefit anytime when we play in the tournament down there

Big jump from 7 a side to 11 a side

To a park ending up too small to a park far too big

[Stuart Dickson]

England do it and i can see the benefit anytime when we play in the tournament down there

Big jump from 7 a side to 11 a side

To a park ending up too small to a park far too big

I don't know - I remember going from 7 to 11 and the transition didn't seem too bad. Where the biggest problem existed was in goals. Suddenly you had a 4ft tall goalkeeper playing in full size goals and it didn't take teams long to learn that shooting high into the net was the way to score goals. Maybe we were helped by the fact that our home pitch back then was at the now derelict Lammermoor Primary in Wishaw - a good quality grass park with excellent drainage that probably just made the minimum size for an 11-a-side pitch. Infact I would have said that the fact there was more space on the 11-a-side park was probably a good thing at that age cause the kids got a bit more time to bring the ball down and to pick out their passes. Our side has only played two games against English sides though. I thought we held our own, winning one and drawing the other. The sides we were playing against clearly had access to better facilities than we did but I've no idea if that was as standard or it was just indicative of juvenile clubs who were benefiting from the Sunderland AFC Foundation Scheme.

I think I'm right in saying that in Scotland our Pro Youth sides have been playing 9-a-sides for a number of years now at certain age groups?

[Kombi Buddie]

we looked forward to the jump from 7 a-side to 9v9 since the boys were U9's. We are now 1/2 way into our 1st season at 9v9 and I am starting to feel the pitch is too small for most of my players. I thought they'd have found it more difficult.

It is their first season playing off sides and that has come quite quickly to most. If I can keep the bulk of my current squad for a few years, they'll be a fairly decent 11 v 11 side. Just now I have 4 strong left footed players which gives me a great balance as left back, left mid & striker are all left footers and I have the same down the right and in the middle, can mix & match left & right footers.

need to teach them to shoot though. Created a good 15 chances yesterday, scored the harder chances & fluffed the less difficult. They won 3-2 but could have been so much more and it is missed chances that has defined our season to date.

Next Sunday, we have our cup match v Langley Colts {postponed due to weather, a few weeks back} They are 40 places above us in the league. Our opponents yesterday played the team 1 spot behind them & got beat 14-0. We are going for the win :-).

Got a squad of 13 & have 9 different scorers. Centre Mid has 10 in 12 games, Left back has 8 in 9 games. Goals form 8 out of the 9 positions. Goalie gets the 1st penalty to {hopefully} give us the full house :-)

Edited December 8, 2014 by Kombi Buddie

[Stuart Dickson]

Big match for us, weather permitting, on Sunday afternoon. We're at home to our bogey team - Mill United Colts - in the 3rd Round of the Regional Cup. They beat us 9-0 in our first match against each other this season, we had a number of players still on holiday and a few injuries at that time. In the second game it took them to the 83rd minute to take the lead and when we threw everything at them to try to get level again they snatched a second. They are a good side but a long way short of fallible and our form has improved a lot since then. We're at full strength for the first time this season so we'll learn a lot in this one.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Stuart Dickson

[Kombi Buddie]

Good Luck Sunday.

[Kombi Buddie]

good luck in your match againstMill United Colts, Stuart.

Team we played last Sunday, Harold Wood Cougars was my team 1st ever opponents when they started at U7's. We lost that 1st game 2-0 and have drawn every other game since. 2-1 down at half time last week looked la bot ominous as we had over run them in the 1st half.

Our keeper touched the ball about twice in the second half as we ran out 3-2 winners comfortably but should have been much more.

I need my boys to bring their shooting boots tomorrow as chances may be few & far between. Cougars lost 14-0 to the team sitting 1 place above our opponents tomorrow. If my boys play their game, they'll be fine but, if they don't turn up, it'll be like the Alamo.

Here's hoping for wins for us both tomorrow, we'll be going for it :-)

[Stuart Dickson]

good luck in your match againstMill United Colts, Stuart.

Team we played last Sunday, Harold Wood Cougars was my team 1st ever opponents when they started at U7's. We lost that 1st game 2-0 and have drawn every other game since. 2-1 down at half time last week looked la bot ominous as we had over run them in the 1st half.

Our keeper touched the ball about twice in the second half as we ran out 3-2 winners comfortably but should have been much more.

I need my boys to bring their shooting boots tomorrow as chances may be few & far between. Cougars lost 14-0 to the team sitting 1 place above our opponents tomorrow. If my boys play their game, they'll be fine but, if they don't turn up, it'll be like the Alamo.

Here's hoping for wins for us both tomorrow, we'll be going for it :-)

Thanks and all the best Kombi.

[Kombi Buddie]

we are now out of the cup but the boys done me & themselves proud.

Scoreline of 5-0 belies their effort. Both teams managed about an equal number of shots in the game, theirs going in was the main difference, oh & the fact all their players were academy standard. My team gave it a real go. Lost the 1st half 5-0 but drew the 2nd 0-0.

Back to league business on 18th January.

How did you get on?

[Stuart Dickson]

Ach we lost 3-1 Kombi. We took the lead early on and then seemed to lose our way giving them far too much posession. They equalised just before half time. Then in the second half they scored, wind assisted - direct from a corner. In the last 15 we were all over them and they looked dead on their feet but in the last seconds the ref awarded them a soft penalty when our keeper appeared to win a 50/50 ball.

The only positive to take from it really was that yet again its been exciting and entertaining but losing this one hurts.

[Kombi Buddie]

got this email yesterday

Dear Graeme,

"Further to your recent application requesting tickets for the England v Lithuania match, I am pleased to confirm that we are able toaccommodate your group and can offer you the requested amount of tickets.

For your information, please note that we aim to offer a set number of tickets in the family enclosure area, specifically to schools / youth teams. A set number of tickets are set aside for schools in the local community and a further set number are then set aside to be issued by ballot. However, to qualify for these tickets, you must comply with the following Terms & Conditions: -

- You will receive 1 free ticket for every 12 child tickets purchased (for the use of school teachers/parents/guardians).

Child Price = £10 Adult Price = £20"

I am guaranteed 49 tickets in total with a minimum ratio of at least 1 child with every 3 adults.

Should be taking 30 players & 18 adults.

Hopefully, it'll be a good game of football & a decent experience for the boys. Roll on March 27th.

[Kombi Buddie]

Gents, Hope your teams all had good seasons.

A while back, mentioned about bringing my team up to Paisley/Glasgow and getting a couple of matches against local teams but it never materialised for this year mainly due to most of the team going on school residential trips & asking the parents to pay for a 2nd trip so soon, was thought a bridge too far.

Anyways, we are on for next year.

I expect to confirm a booking at Lapwing Lodge {can I call it Peesweep} by this weekend for next Easter.

I am hoping they have availability Friday 1st April to Tuesday 5th April {which is our preferred dates}.

Plan will be to travel up Friday 1st April

arrange matches for Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd April in the mornings.

go to a football match {preferably St Mirren} on the Saturday afternoon but if they are not playing locally,

go to another match.

Activity day on the Monday & travel back on the Tuesday.

Sounding out prices of Coaches & Minibus hire & then we'll be as good as sorted, all we'll need is teams to play.

My teams will be Under 12's next season. The U14's may also join us.

Gents, can anyone accommodate us for some matches. Many thanks.

G..

Edited April 14, 2015 by Kombi Buddie