From The Dugout

Junior Club news

January 2009  

Hi everyone, welcome to the new look website, the start of a new year and the early days of a new football season. I hope you have all had good holidays and are ready for some quality Bays football in 2009.   

I spent the Christmas break over in England and had the pleasure of going to 2 Premier league matches, Fulham 3 - Middlesborough 0 and Stoke City 0 - Man United 1. Both were great games with some quality football. The thing that impressed me most were the first touches of the ball by players of that ablilty, they always seemed to do the prefect thing when they received the ball – moved it away from a challenging player or took it forwards the right amount. What do you do when you first get the ball at your feet?  

I will try and keep you all up to date with news and events for the Junior Club at least once a month, so make sure you come back and keep an eye on this newsletter. 

These are early days for the new season but we already have some important dates for your diary. Junior football will start for everybody on May 2nd 2009 with the “competitive grades” (ie Divisions 1 and 2 for 10th grade and above) starting on Sunday 26th April. Yes, that’s a Sunday – the day after Anzac day. Competitive grades will also be playing two Saturday and Sunday, back to back, games, in May, so if you are in a competitive team don’t plan too much in the way of weekends away in May! 

Last season saw some great results for Bays teams in the leagues and with the club getting fully re-organised, after the decision was made to not merge with Cashmere, we have appointed Mick Braithwaite as Head of Football for the club in 2009. Both Mick, myself and all the Bays coaches will be hoping to build on last years progress and make sure everyone has a lot of fun playing junior football at Bays and, of course, we get some good results at all levels.  

With that in mind we will be beginning pre-season fitness training for 10th and 11th grades on 4th February. If you are interested in playing “competitive football” for the club then come and join in, get fit and flexible and ready for the season. We’ll be at Barnett Park from 4:30pm each Wednesday, the sessions are free and open to all of this years 10th and 11th grade players (in any team).  

Maybe now’s the time to explain the term “competitive football” – from 7th to 9th grades Bays enters teams in the Mainland competitions. These grades count the scores but no leagues are run and the results are not recorded. From 10th Grade upwards Divisions 1 and 2 are known as the “competitive grades” and the results are recorded with league tables, promotion and demotion. Although there is promotion and demotion in Division 3 this league and all the leagues below are not as competitive. 

Ferrymead Bays, along with all the other clubs, run trials to select our best players to play in the “competitive grades”. So far we have only set the dates for the trials for 10th and 11th Grades – these will be 22nd February and 1st March. The dates for the other grades will be announced soon. If you are interested in playing at the top level of your age group then please come along to the trials and give it your best try to get into one of the teams. If you are looking to play football every week but don’t want to necessarily play at the top level, with all the training and challenges that involves, then please register to play for the club but don’t come to the trials. We’ll still have a team for you and you will still enjoy your football with Bays.  

So if you are thinking of going to a trial, you are 10th or 11th grade, then come and join in the pre-season fitness sessions. 

With regards to registration, the club is having a registration day on 28th February at the Mount Pleasant Community Centre, hope to see you there.  

Final point of this newsletter is to remind parents that we will need a lot of volunteers this year. Coaches, refs, linesmen, managers, helpers, etc. Please start volunteering to help with the teams, there will be space on the registration forms to show your support. 

The next newsletter will be out in early February, hopefully I will have met some of you by then at the fitness sessions and I look forward to seeing many of you at the registration dates.  

Have a great end of holiday, enjoy your football and GO THE BAYS!  

Richard 

Junior Club Captain