At the very end of last season, we enjoyed our ‘play on pitch’ day. We give all the children who play for the Club in our section the opportunity to get on the pitch and have a bit of a game or two. It’s a great day for all.
During the summer, we had a lot of tournament success. The foundation boys’ and girls’ teams; Under-8s and Under-9s; the boys’ and girls’ Under-10s and Under-11s; the Under-14s girls and Under-16s JPL team, all won tournaments, which is a great testament to the work that goes on behind the scenes.
This season we will have 38 teams in total under our umbrella, with 389 children signing on. All of these receive a free season ticket for a parent, which as a Club we hope helps increase support for the first teams and we look forward to seeing some new faces at matches. We are also excited to be getting the new Adidas kits which look very smart!
The big news is the foundation of the Women’s Development team. This will be run by George Kingdon and will bridge the gap between the youth section and senior side, running parallel with the Women’s Academy side. The idea is that we follow the set-up in the boys’ section. So, you’ll have a first team, academy team, then development side and then the Under-16s and lower. It’s early days for both the academy and development sides, but everyone is behind them and wishes George the best of luck in running both.
We also welcome a new Under-7s team into the fold, which we are excited to watch get going.
Pre-season, we were delighted to see one of the keepers Harvey get a first team opportunity with Ady. At just 16, it was an amazing achievement – he featured for both the grassroots section for a number of years in the KYL under Warren and in the JPL in the Academy Youth section and it shows players can flourish in the grassroots section.
We have teams booked in for flag waving at first team games and now look forward to getting the season underway. We thank all the managers, coaches and parents who put so much time into making the youth section such a success and wish everyone the best of luck in the season.
