After a very successful first season with this team at Farnborough FC, playing in Surrey Youth League, the team will now play in the highest division (Premier Elite) in probably one of the toughest leagues in the country.
Many of the players who represented Farnborough FC so well at under 14 last season came through a robust trials process and have been joined by 4 new players, who excelled in the trials. We welcome Tom, Ben, Mikey and Rory to our squad.
Pre-season will start with weekly sessions to get players used to playing together again, develop a system of play that will suit us for the challenges ahead and develop a team spirit that will give us an edge. As players return from holiday at the end of August, we will increase the training sessions to 2 per week and introduce friendlies before our first league match on 9th September 2012.
The emphasis for this squad will be developing players into the best they can be. The regular twice weekly sessions run by qualified UEFA coaches will be supplemented by outside coaches to give a slightly different perspective and variety. Specialist goalkeeping sessions will run as we did last season. A ratio of 2 training sessions to one match is consistent with FA recommendations.
Players will supplement this with school matches and in some cases district matches. Farnborough FC must be prioritised ahead of all other football activity and we will judge the players on how well they've developed at the end of the season when we select for under 16.
We've always had great support from parents and they are an important part of the set-up. System of play, player position and selection are at the discretion of the coaches.
Season 2012/13 promises a lot and some things are already guaranteed: it will be great fun and the players will improve enormously. As long as that happens, everything else should fall into place and winning football matches should be a consequence. However, there are some good sides and we will have to get to a very high standard and produce that form consistently to beat them.
Let's see, but the next part of our journey starts next week. Good luck!
