Under 16s End of Season Report 2007/08

June 23, 2008 · Filed Under Upton FC - Under 16 

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.

Once we got into the season properly the lads football not only became good it was superb to watch, on the deck two touch stuff and we made good teams look average even poor but we still had one problem. Defence! Out of the back four we had three new recruits holding down regular places, with myself pretty much never defending and Gary not played for years we were not sure how to get the lads working as one, covering for each and generally being solid. This was our hardest challenge but after a 7-5 defeat to Birkenhead Boys we didn’t concede many goals at all, we would like to thank the 6 or 7 defenders who worked endlessly in training for months and months, the defence was awesome for the second half of season.

So after early losses to Glenavon and Birkenhead the lads won every game comfortably and had got themselves into second in the league. We still had to big teams to play but holding down the runners up spot was the main aim. We then came to the winter, poor weather followed by even worse fixture allocation meant we played two games in three months. Training became a chore for the lads and even with me and Gary trying to keep it as interesting as possible we couldn’t blame the lads for not wanting to come, who wants to train for a place when you know your not playing a match for another three weeks. For that period lads we apologise for the lack of football that was on offer.

With the fixtures back up and running we started back off jaded, poor in parts and with one of two bad results 1st or 2nd place had well and truly passed us by. After this we had a chat and asked the lads to play football, no long balls what so ever, on the deck anywhere on the park, if the back four wanted to keep the ball for five mins then that’s fine, we only conceded one goal from playing it out of defence but created far more and we had the belief that the lads where good enough to do it, we asked them to go out and enjoy the football again as we had earlier on in the season whether it be a bottom of the league side or one of the tops teams.

The lads responded by putting in some of the best performances I have seen from any Upton side at any age level in my 14 years at the club as a player and as a coach. They were narrowly defeated by 1st and 2nd in the league by one goal at each of the games, they beat Greenleas away, missed a penalty and still show boated their way round the park. They drew with a very physical New Brighton side away then brought them home the following week and showed them how to play football, beating them comfortably.

All in all the lads have been awesome, cheeky as **** but awesome. Myself and Gary are very proud of what the lads have achieved this year and honestly think that if we didn’t have the fixture problem halfway through the season we would of grabbed 3rd maybe 2nd.

We would like to thank them firstly for their time, secondly for their attitude to playing for Upton Football club and lastly for being a team, a team of lads that stuck up for each other in every single game when it got physical. I’m sure the majority of you will go on to play football at a good amateur level with perhaps three or four of you that could play even higher again. We wish you good luck in whatever you chose to do lads.

Luke and Gary

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply