Newsletter January 2012

UNDER 7s NEWSLETTER – JANUARY 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I hope you’ve all had a lovely time over the last few weeks but FOOTBALL IS BACK!

Player development

We will be focusing on decision making as well as dribbling and shooting over the next 4 – 6 weeks with some exciting new games for the footballers.

I hope they’ve all had lots of football related presents and have been using their note pads!

As with anything we do practice is vital and practice makes permanent!  They say that to be an elite performer, footballers should have had 16,000 touches of the ball (at the very least) by the age of 16 therefore, as you can see, there’s a long way to go to make our footballers the best!

Also, there will be / are academy coaches from professional clubs watching the team and so you may receive invitations for your son to attend the particular club’s development centre.  These are, of course, great opportunities for the lads to develop even further because of the quality coaching.  However, if invited, this does not mean the footballer is destined to be a professional and clubs do release a lot of those that are invited along, with some of those released actually going off the sport.

I would never put any of the footballers off from attending a development centre (and it is not down to me anyway!) all I would say is that the situation needs to be managed properly to ensure the lad’s feet are kept on the ground – which I know they would because we have great parents.

Training

A reminder that we have the following training lined up:

-       <!--[endif]-->Mark Senior, who runs and owns pro skills soccer which is based at Woodhouse Grove, Apperley Bridge.  Mark is also Man United Academy coach for 6 – 8 year olds.  This session will take place on 20 January 2012 and I will confirm the meeting time etc shortly.

-       Ben Hardaker on 7 January 2012 and 4 February 2012 which are both Saturdays and the sessions will be at around 9.30 am.

As mentioned in the last newsletter I am also looking to arrange a further session with Anthony Gallagher, who was the tutor on my FA level 1 coaching course and am just waiting for some dates, probably in February, for Anthony’s session

I am sorry about the session that I had lined up with Steve Lister.  We only found out that the 3G pitch was closed on the Saturday morning about 10 minutes before we were to meet!  I hope the lads enjoyed the session that Steve ran even though we were restricted with space.  Steve has said that he will try re-arrange the session and so I will be back in touch shortly about any proposed dates.

Last thing on this subject, thanks to you all for ensuring the lads wear their training kit (although I have seen a little bit of mix and match with match kit socks being worn with the training kit – potentially close to issuing my first parent fines….you’ve been warned!) and a reminder that shinpads must be worn for training.

Coaching team

We all had a great festive period and did nothing else other than spending time planning sessions for the footballers and putting together our master plan as to how Shelf U7s can conquer the footballing world in 2012 and beyond….

Birthdays

One thing I have introduced is that when one of the team has a birthday, on the closest training session to his birthday, he will be able to pick the warm up session that we do!

We have had birthdays for Alexander, George and Herbie recently and I know we have Alfie’s coming up – Happy Birthday to those!  Please help me with any birthdays so we don’t miss anyone!

Fixtures

I have arranged a friendly with Northowram on 12 February 2012 at their pitch so please put this in your diary.

Please let me know if you do not have a copy of the fixtures until the end of the season.  If you want to view these on line, please go to:   http://www.huddersfieldjfl.co.uk/frame3(ft).htm

The games can take place on Saturday or Sundays and I will let you know each week what day the game is on and kick-off/meeting times etc.  We will meet 30 minutes before the kick off.

For away games, I am more than happy to meet people at the library but would ask that you let me know you want to meet me.  If I don’t hear from anyone, I will assume that you will meet at the ground.

Finally, please could you all try to confirm whether your son will or will not be able to play in the games because it helps me massively plan for each game.

FA Respect programme

The FA launched this programme a couple of years back to try to develop footballers at grassroots level including ensuring they make their own decisions when playing and in particular move away from the old fashioned way of junior football of parents screaming at referees and players!

The club was recently visited by a member of the West Riding County FA who talked about this programme and the importance it has in grassroots football – you’ll have all seen the press about Spain’s grassroots football programme and this being behind their success!

One thing that I want to introduce is for the players to shake hands before the match (like the professionals do) because this shows a massive sign of respect from the club and will teach the footballers the right way.  Also, I am hopefully going to be getting some trainee referees from the County FA to run our matches which will be fantastic (for free too!).

If anybody would like to read more about this, please let me know.  Also, the FA have just released their proposals for grassroots football and I can email the note through to those that want to read about it – I will be highlighting the main points anyway in the next newsletter – a lot of the proposals Shelf are already doing / trying to implement anyway you’ll be pleased to know!

Supporting the team

Following on from the above, I have had a(nother) reminder to use the respect barriers and so I am sorry if I insist on you all standing behind these but thank you, in advance, for putting up with me whilst I go on!

On a serious note though, the club are open to fines by the County FA if they are not used and they are useful to ensure the footballers have the required space to play in.

Sponsorship / fundraising

I NEED YOU!

I want to try purchase a tracksuit for the footballers and so please can you all try to help to raise funds for these – I think it will cost around £500 to kit all of the footballers out and so please get your thinking caps on about what we can do.  So you know, hopefully, the sale of the calendars will contribute and thanks to Oskar’s Dad for assisting with this!  I have also got a sponsor for the tracksuits who has contributed more than half.

Mrs F has thought about a bring and buy sale as well as the usual tea / coffee stall.  All ideas will be welcome!

Woolly hats

These should be ready in the first two weeks of January and I’ve ordered 15 because I thought most of you would want one.  They will cost £5 and adults sizes are available at a slightly higher price if you want to wear the team’s colours to show your support!

Presentation day

Please don’t forget about the presentation day and if anyone has any ideas about the day or wants to put forward suggestions for what you’d like to see there, please feed these into me.

Thank you for your continued support

Adam