Youth Team End of Season Report 2007/08

June 23, 2008 · Filed Under Upton FC - Youth Team 

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!

Unfortunately it was during this period that Dave Coyle had to leave his post as team manager due to personal reasons, this was a big blow to many of the players as they had worked with Dave for several years but to there credit they understood Dave’s reasons and with Bill in charge got on with the job.

One of the best games of the season took place at Chrisleton the league leaders were we lost 2-1 but followed up with a 5-1 win over Princess Villa including a screamer from Steve McGuiness.

It was during October that a big blow to our progress occurred with 3 teams dropping out of the league, needless to say we had played and beaten these teams and they had taken points off other teams around us. This resulted in a loss of 6 points and meant big holes in the fixture list. We never recovered from this and coupled with the fact that in the 3 months October to December we only played 4 matches, it was almost impossible to get any momentum going and wins became scarcer as the season progressed.

Some highlights from the season include a 4 goal haul from Andy Wilson, A rare goal from Alex Clarke, Sublime footwork from Paul Seddon, Mike Newton explaining the laws to most refs most Sundays, Neil Callister when playing at full-back running up and down the line chattering to Bill how he can play in midfield, Dominic Griffiths playing in goal when Dave Gallagher was unavailable. Steve Wagstaff chipped in with a few goals from centre half but this made him think at training he was a centre forward which was quite fun! James “Smithy” Smith many appearances from Sub whose attitude to the situation was spot on.

Eight of the youth team went on the club trip to Madrid and lead by “Chief” Chris Simpson with support from Tim Wilson and Mike Adamson had a great time, apparently when at the Real Madrid match the word unbelievable was in frequent use.

Thanks go to the following two players who are now too old to continue at youth level Danny Morris and Richie Mowbray both players have given many years to Upton FC we wish them look for the future. Thanks also once again to Phil Mowbray for refereeing on several occasions when no ref turned up.

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