League Champions 2008 & Radio City Interview
Congratulations go to a fantastic performance by the Upton FC Under 11 team who won their league in the 2007/08 season. Well done everyone, a great achievement.
The team were featured on Radio City recently. Click on the following link to hear the full audio.
Team Trials for 2008/09
The current Under 11 team - Under 12s for 2008/09 - will be holding player trials to recruit players for the forthcoming 2008/09 season. Eligible players will be going into Year 7 in Sept 2008.
As a championship winning team, the team are looking for exceptional players to improve the squad, though everyone is welcome to try out. The trials will run from May 10th through to early July when squad selection will be made.
All interested players should contact Stephen Turk on 07977 720071 for further details.
Club Secretary’s End of Season Report 2007/08
Another year passes and this season has been exceptional in so many ways. At the top of our achievements is our Charter Standard Community Club Award. This award is the highest pinnacle of the FA structure for clubs working within the FA Charter Standard framework. We celebrated the award with a presentation by Cheshire County FA personnel on the pitch at the Tranmere Rovers v Nottingham Forest game. It was a great day out with lots of players and staff being in attendance.
In never fails to amaze me how a very willing and able staff support the club. No staff member is paid and the cost to them in terms of time and commitment is very high – alongside the incidental cost of fuel to get to training and matches. I wish to place on record my sincere thanks to all staff who are involved with Upton Football Club. When the staff are together at meetings or on courses or away on club trips there is always a great camaraderie and a laugh is never too far away. If you wrote down all the items that a member of staff is expected to do I don’t think we would have any volunteers, but unfailingly they keep turning up to matches, courses and meetings and never complain. Thank you to you all – you are much appreciated and needed!
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Open Age End of Season Report 2007/08
It has been a difficult 4th season in Open Age football, after strengthening the squad with an influx of Youth Team players and bringing in some experienced players.
We looked forward to a good season, but as luck would have it we played The Oyster in our first game and lost 5-2. The Oyster were easily the best team in our league as they went on to win the league and 2 other trophies.
That said we then went on an unbeaten run-in cup and league, with special victories over Pilot and Rose and Crown two teams we had not beaten before, so things were looking good. Unfortunately in October we lost Brian Layfield for 10 weeks and Neil Bolton had his chest bone broken after 2 minutes of a home game and subsequently was taken by ambulance to hospital for a stay of 24 hours.
Neil then decided to retire from the playing side but he has now come on board with the coaching staff with myself with Open Age and Dave Taylor with the under 7s, so the referees are going to have a busy time!
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Youth Team End of Season Report 2007/08
Pre-season saw the nucleus of last years Under 16s plus 3 players from last years youth team joined by some new signings in the summer. With Dave Coyle and Bill Harris at his side all looked well for the season ahead.
The season kicked off with a visit to Ellesmere Port and five days later home to Higher Bebington, both games resulted in the same score line 4-2 to the opposition, everyone was disappointed because there was a real belief that these games were thrown away. Dave explained to the squad that they needed to concentrate more for the whole game (or words to that effect).
The next three games saw a complete change of fortune with three wins on the bounce scoring 20 goals with only 3 conceded including a hat-trick from Darren Pritchard coming on as a sub!
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Under 16s End of Season Report 2007/08
With this being the lads last year at junior football and myself and Gary’s first year in charge we thought we would make an early start and recruit as many new quality players as possible to add to last seasons league winners.
We started fairly poor losing to Glenavon three nil without really putting up much of a fight, at that point we realised the lads didn’t actually think they could beat the top teams and with that attitude didn’t stand a chance of challenging for anything. So we started to install confidence, mainly through training and getting them to realise how good they are, setting small challenges and building confidence.
The small sided matches in training where intense to create a match like atmosphere with lots of handicaps to tighten up their play. Shin pads and training kit was essential as we didn’t think the lads could perform properly in a tracksuit and trainers.
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Under 15s End of Season Report 2007/08
Entering the season we had a squad of fifteen players but unfortunately lost two players very early. This had the knock on effect that we found ourselves playing a number of matches without a full squad and sometimes less than eleven players.
The players dug in and produced some excellent football where the team were often complimented for the attitude and doggedness by the opposition.
The wonderful weather intervened and over the Christmas and New Year period a lot of matches were postponed. We found ourselves in the bottom third of the table playing tough games against the top teams. Although we were losing a number of the matches the performances were encouraging.
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Under 14s End of Season Report 2007/08
Having finished runners up in the B league last year the under 14’s were faced with the challenge of the A and B league joining together, and finding out how we could compete with the teams from last season’s A league.
When the fixtures came out we knew it would not be long before we found out as our first six games saw us playing teams from last year’s A league. Four convincing wins and then two narrow defeats against last season’s champions and runners up convinced me the lads were more than capable of holding their own against the stronger teams.
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Under 14s Girls End of Season Report 2007/08
Just 2 girls remained from the previous season’s Under 14s team, with the majority moving up from the Under 12s and a couple of new additions. We started the season with a squad of 10, but by Christmas, with the loss of 2 and the addition of 1 we were down to 9. Under 14s play 7 a side and unfortunately a squad of 9 is just too small and this was our major problem throughout the year. In nearly 50% of our matches we were unable to field a full side due to holidays, injuries and other commitments.
Therefore, in spite of just a couple of victories and draws throughout the season we feel the girls performed better than the table showed in battling on through difficult circumstances. We have some very talented and committed girls who didn’t always get the credit they deserved and we are sure with just a couple of more girls we would have a good side capable of giving anybody a match.
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Under 11s End of Season Report 2007/08
As soon as the Mini Soccer season ended in May 2007 we began trials for lads to win a place in the Under 11s squad. We had 30 lads turn up week in week out and after playing a number of friendly games we decided on the 16 lads we were going to pick. This unfortunately meant we lost a number of lads, some who had been with the club for a number of years.
The lads very quickly settled into the new rules and after a number of pre season games we approached the start of the season feeling quietly confident that we would mount a serious challenge and be one of the teams to beat.
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Under 12s Girls End of Season Report 2007/08
This season the girls have proven themselves to be a team of true professionals. At every match they’ve earned the respect of the other team with frequent comments regarding their good behaviour and sportsmanship. Our final league position placed us mid-table; our one and only weakness being the lack of a dedicated keeper. During the season a number of the team demonstrated their all-round ability by taking on this role, however, the consistency of a permanent keeper may well have seen a different outcome for us.
As with every season in the Girls league, the team changed as players from the under 10s moved and the older players moved to the under 14s. In addition, some of the girls also moved from junior school to senior school at the beginning of the season. Despite the new schools and the challenges and new pressures that come with that, the team continued to work together.
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