Club Update

One club – 59 Teams - 750 Players – 200 Volunteers

The last 6 months have been difficult for everyone and whilst we all enjoy getting back to football and slowly getting back to some structure and normality in our lives perhaps we should all take a minute to reflect on the 41,500 people in this country who have lost their lives to date due to the pandemic. We must also never forget the heroic efforts of our unsung heroes in the NHS, and all types of care and support workers, who continue to perform miracles on a daily basis under exceptionally challenging conditions.

We have seen all of our clubs teams resume training and games over the last couple of months and whilst our young players were all delighted to be back playing football the biggest smiles, having been in lockdown for some 3 months or so, were reserved for seeing friends and team mates again. The comradery of being part of a team and the wellbeing this brings should not be underestimated or taken for granted as has been experienced in so many ways over the last few months.

I would at this point like to take the opportunity to thank all of our managers and coaches who prepared the training sessions for their teams in small groups under very stringent covid 19 guidelines, set by both the FA , the government and our club, to ensure that the children could return to football as soon as possible which undoubtedly had a positive effect on both their wellbeing and mental health.

Our first team held online training sessions during early lockdown from the comfort of their own homes and then commenced training in small groups when permitted in early June. This then progressed to competitive friendlies in August of which we played seven games winning five, drawing one with one defeat.

Our young teams were sadly denied their normal end of season presentations and therefore many of these events took place via “zoom” or “team” platforms, now very normal and everyday terminology, to ensure that the children were rewarded and recognised for their hard work during a season which ultimately was declared null and void.

Our club will start the 2020/21 season with 59 teams and 750 registered players due to the hard work of everyone over the last few months in forming teams, preparing training sessions and registering players. A not to be underestimated task!

We will field 22 new teams to the club next season of which 14 are made up of children who have predominately never played football in a team (6 x U7, 3 x U8, 1 x U9, 1 x U10, 1 x U10 Girls, 2 x U11 Girls). The club is extremely proud to have made this happen encouraging very young children , and their parents, to get involved in the “beautiful game”. In addition to the newly formed teams we extend a huge welcome to the managers/coaches and teams who have joined us from other local clubs namely Tom and Phil(U8), Dan(U10), Nick and Richard(U12), Mark and Mike(U13) and Karl and Darren (U14).

The club has seen a huge interest in female football over the summer months whereby we will field 12 female teams next season from 4 last season and now include a Ladies Development team to bridge the gap between youth football and senior football . Like their male counterparts the club has high ambitions for ladies football with an objective to join the National Womens League Pyramid system within 2-3 years.

We were delighted to recently see 4 x U18 players make their debuts for our ladies senior team with 3 of them scoring whilst 16 year old Kaylee Buckingham made history last season becoming the youngest player to score for the club at senior level in our 102 year history.

The club will sadly leave our home for the last 13 years in Chestnut Avenue at the end of October. Whilst the new ground and facilities in the “new world” are fantastic those of us that have only known the club to be at the “old ground” will leave with wonderful memories of the venue that has seen the club grow and develop tremendously over that time.

The outstanding work of club volunteers has seen the venue develop to host such great memories as summer tournaments, our first FA Cup game, winning the wessex league division one, various presentation days,  thousands of junior/youth games, the development of girls and ladies football, summer training every day/night to name a few. The recent history of the club is at Chestnut Avenue, which will be very sadly missed, as we have to now build new memories at Stoneham Lane whilst the memories for those of us fortunate enough to have been with the club at Chestnut Avenue will live forever.