Newsletter November 2022

It’s that time of the year again so the Christmas party is once again at Southport Rugby club on Friday 9th December. There is a raffle, DJ a visit from Santa and a selection box for the players. Raffle prizes include a Royal Box at Funny girls, Breakout room Liverpool voucher, Preston North End tickets and a £300 flooring voucher from our u8 sponsor DCTUK, Karting Session voucher amongst other items. These tickets can be purchased from Chloe Williams and Kelly Gilboy, if you want some but don’t know either of these two please speak to your coach who can arrange it.

Big thank you to Chloe, Kelly and Karen Rimmer for organising the Christmas party, they form part of the events and social committee and would welcome any offers of help.

The venue capacity is only 200 people so we have made arrangements for the older teams to have separate events We acknowledge that this isn’t ideal and are on the hunt for a bigger venue for next year.

Cup runs

We are having a bit of success in the reaching the latter stages of the Craven Minor League cup competitions with both under 11 teams and the u12 reds in the semi finals of their respective cups. The u8 reds are through to the final stages of their cup picking up some magnificent results in what was a tough group to get out of.

Welcome to the club

The Under 11 reds have a new manger in Rob and a few new players in Jack, Tommy, Ilyas and Jesse, the team are progressing well and have picked up some great results recently, both under 12 teams have welcomed new arrivals too recently, the blacks Reece, JonPaul, Owen and Theo and the reds have welcomed Reece and Joel. We hope you enjoy your football with us.

Update from our newest teams

In the summer we welcomed some new managers to the club so we thought it might be nice to hear how they are getting on from the managers, first up…

‘’Hello All, My name is Phil Rowland and I have the pleasure of running the u7s reds team. My son Theo was part of Martyn’s coaching sessions for a few years and I was approached and asked about taking an u7s team for this season. I jumped at the opportunity. Having played football for most of my life in the Southport leagues (and scored a few gaols along the way) you get to the age when its time to watch the game from the side-lines. 

 At the start we had a squad of around 13 lads so it was difficult to find to find another coach to take the blacks team but luckily Paul Morton stepped up and took on the team. We trained and played preseason matches as a squad to begin with and as the season approached we split the squad into the 2 teams.

 It has been great to watch the players develop over the past 5 months and see the players really enjoying the game. In preseason we started off really well with 2 wins and I thought this coaching job was easy but I was soon brought back down with a few defeats.  We had our first league win this weekend as a team (unfortunately it was against the black team) and hopefully that will be a great confidence booster for the team to push on for the rest of the season. 

 Southport Athletic as a club has been great with me from providing me with the relevant training and coaching courses. I jumped at the chance to become FA Qualified coach and recently undertook the Level 1 course. I am hoping to undertake the next level of course to be able to coach the players at a higher level. I was also luckily enough to be passed on a sponsor for the teams kit in Hickories who were kind enough to provide a full kit and training jacket which the players loved. When I first took the sessions I was provided with all training gear needed to coach the team. I would encourage anyone to get involved in helping at grassroots level.’’

Secondly here is Paul Morton of the u7 blacks

“It’s been a great start to the season for the U7 Blacks. All of the boys were new to playing in a team. With me being a new coach it really was uncharted territory for all of us. We have worked hard to get the basics right, being comfortable with the ball, learning about formations, passing and above all having fun and enjoying their football. What has taken me by surprise is how quickly they have adapted to match days. For children so young to show so much heart and will to win is amazing to see, and it resulted in a league win within the first 3 months of the season which is a huge achievement for them. They are making huge progress really quickly.

I’m thoroughly enjoying this grassroots journey and seeing the boys improve week by week and playing with a smile on their face gives me a huge sense of pride. There is a huge amount of work that goes into being a manager and running a grassroots club. SAJFC has a fantastic management structure that supports the coaches and puts the kids welfare and community values as a highest priority. There is always support and guidance from across the club whenever needed which is a huge reassurance for me. The plans for the club also make for a very exciting future.

Lastly I want to thanks the parents and families for their amazing support so far. The hours spent going to training, match days and for their support for me and what we are trying to achieve. Knowing the parents are supportive is huge for a football manager (especially a new one) and to see them cheering and encouraging the boys on is great to see. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the season holds for this team’’

Lastly Carl Baldantoni from the u12 reds

U12's Reds - Our season so far, we've played 7 championship league games and 2 cups games winning all but 1. We're into the semi final of the Joseph Jackson premier Cup.

We are enjoying a great start to the season, the lads have responded really well to the training sessions. This is my 1st season as a coach, seeing the lads in training then using what they've learned in the games is wonderful. We've been playing some really attacking football scoring a whopping 68 goals in 7 games, conceding 7 and keeping 4 clean sheets in the league. Our top scorer is Louie Jones with an incredible 27 goals in 9 games.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season to see how far we can go.

The team works so hard for each other and some of the football they play is an absolute joy to watch.

I'd like to say a massive thank you to our sponsors J A Jones Flooring & Excel flooring. The boys look the business in their new kits. 

Forza Athletic!!

Team Fee pay

This new subs payment system seems to be working quite well after some teething problems which Ben and Alan look to have got to grips with now, we know theres one or two issues left to sort which Ben is working his way through with the effected people.

Ferryside Lane.

Just to keep you updated we are in constant dialogue with our friends over at Green Sefton about improvements to the playing surfaces and what we as a club can do to help. This wont be an overnight fix but please be assured we are making steady progress and received some encouraging news recently. We will soon be the lease holders on the building and have plans to firstly install female toilets before making some layout changes internally so the club can sustain itself long term but more news of that at a later date. We will require some help as we are looking at putting together a development board consisting of architects, surveyors, project managers, solicitors and book keepers/accounts who are willing to help out even if its in an advisory role.

Girls Teams

Whilst we have girls in our teams, Millie, Bella and Ruby we want to have a girls only team next year ideally. Once the toilets are up and running we will be actively looking to set a team up to play in the Hightown girls league. We have held talks with Liverpool County FA who are keen to help us expand our offering to girls and wouldn’t it be fantastic to see our kit on a girls team!

Thanks for reading as always if you have any suggestions or news you want sharing please get in touch at southportathleticjfc@gmail.com