New Training Fixtures



3 new training fixtures have been added to the "Upcoming Training Fixtures" section of the blog.

 

9th March : UPR (away) 3 teams

5th April : Perry Street (home) 2 teams

13th April : Focus Ferrers (away) 2 teams

Training Saturday 22nd February @ Basildon Sporting Village

All, once again due to the weather forecast and conditions of the pitches at Forest Glade we will be training at Basildon Sporting Village from 11am this Saturday. Please aim to arrive by 10:45 for a prompt start over on the astro turf hockey pitch. Also make sure your children have suitable foot wear for astro turf type surfaces. Map and address for the Sporting Village are detailed below. Again there will be a small donation required to cover the cost of renting out this facility.

Cranes Farm Road
Basildon
Essex
SS14 3GR

Pictures from last season

Coach Jason Warming them up

Passing drills

Match time

End of the game

End of season "Fun day / Training"

Presentation Day

1st ever game over Shenfield School
Left to Right - Ryan,Josh,Lorne,Ellis,Owen 

A very Wet and Windy day !!!

Hannakin Farm Training Game

So today the boys and girls had their first training game of 2014 over at Hannakins Farm in Billericay and for once we had blue skies and no rain!!!. Fortunately they have an astro turf pitch otherwise I fear this would have been yet another training game cancelled due to poor pitch condition. The Forest Glade Under 6's took 2 teams over to Billericay with a mixture of Lions, Tigers and Leopards in each team. This was also the first time the Under 6's got try out the new football kits and I have to say I think they looked great.

 

Both teams showed some rust and the positions on pitch clearly need more work. However given the lack of training and games this year all of the kids did very well and most importantly seemed to enjoy themselves. It always amazes me how much more competitive they get when playing against another team than when compared to our training sessions. Overall out of the 4 training games Forest Glade came away with 2 wins, a draw and a loss, so well done to all.

 

Serendipity Team consisting of : Joshua, Jake, Darcy, Lenny, Samual, Owen, Mason and George.

GMB Team consisting of : Max, Ryan, Lorne, Charlie, Ellis, Alex and Reily.

It was very good to have Reily back in action after being out injured for some time.

The demanding gaffer (Stuart) giving the two teams their pre-training briefing.

Lenny and George with their eyes on the ball.

Darcy and Joshua prepare for a centre kick.

Action shot of Joshua and Owen sprinting back to defend.

George in action with a bit of open space to run with the ball.

Owen gets a break and goes sprinting off down the pitch.

The dynamic duo of Mason and Lenny which proved a formidable force up front.

The astro pitches looked great, but the ball certainly moves around faster than the usual grass that we play on.

At the end of the match the team lines up to give 3 cheers to the Hannakin boys.

Coach Stuart with man of the match for Team Serendipity was Mason with some great goals and footwork.

For Team GMB the man of the match was Ryan for his all round play and concentration.

If anyone has any other pictures from today's training then please send them to the coaches and we will happily post them on the blog. Otherwise weather permitting the next training game is at home next week to Bryon Redstars where we will again be looking to mix up the teams to ensure all of the kids get a chance to play.

Player of the Week 15th Feb 2014

Well done to all the boys who turned up for training today. The astro turf surface was pretty fast and the gusting winds made it very difficult to control the ball at times. However I am sure you will all agree that it is better to train on the astro turf than to cancel more training sessions due to adverse weather and pitch conditions. Anyway congratulations to this weeks players of the week, Alfie, George and Alex - keep up the good work.

 

Player of The Week 15th Feb 2014 : L-R, Alfie, George and Alex.

Lions, Tigers and Leopards

Some time ago now we split the Forest Glade Under 6's into 3 groups called Lions, Tigers and Leopards. The coaches feel that this has been very beneficial for several reasons. Firstly by training and playing in regular groups the boys/girls have started to gel together as teams. This in turn has led to better communication between players and has helped us to start identifying the best position to play some of the children in. Secondly splitting the children into these 3 groups has made organising the training sessions much more cohesive and organised as instantly we can split the children into different groups for drills with minimal time wasted. Thirdly and most importantly we have noticed the gap between abilities of players has closed significantly and all 3 teams are playing very well and can play each other competitively. As we move further into the season it is our plan to maintain these three groups for training purposes for the reasons given above. 

You will notice from the blog that we have updated this to show forthcoming training games against other teams in our area. Whilst having such a large squad of players is good in that we hope to be able to field three teams next year it has also been a problem in trying to get such games organised for all three teams and ensure that all the players are playing or have had an experience of playing in such games.

Therefore we have a taken a decision that going forward until we start the league season in September that for all future training games we are going to mix the teams and combine players from each squad. This will ensure that we can involve all players in games up to the start of the season in September. The training teams will no longer be referred to as Lions, Tigers and Leopards but instead just Forest Glade U6s.  The aim is to allow us to evaluate all players we have and for us to pick three strong squads for next season. Whilst it is nice to win games our overall aim as it has been since we started this is to ensure that the players enjoy playing football and that we continue to develop them as players and people.

I trust that all the parents will support this decision and understand our reasons for doing so, I am of course happy to discuss with any parent our thinking on this.


We also need to start thinking about our goalkeepers and we would like to be in position whereby we have a couple of goalkeepers in each squad and therefore we are going to rotate goalkeepers going forward. It may be for a whole game or just a half but again we think it best to explain our reasons for this if you suddenly see your child in goal one week.  

Parent/Sideline Coaching

A gentle reminder to all parents to refrain from coaching your children from the sidelines during our training sessions. We absolutely want you to support your children and provide them with motivational encouragement, but leave the coaching to the coaches running the sessions. Parent's coaching from the sidelines undermines what the coaches are doing/saying and can often have a negative impact on the child's performance.

Also be reminded that part of your 2013/14 application form was acceptance of the club constitution which includes strict guidelines on codes of conduct for parents/supports on page 7. If in any doubt please refer to the club constitution document located on the Forest Glade Homepage under documents

Goal / Man of the Match Certificates

After receiving feedback from the parents the coaches have agreed to stop awarding "Man of the match" and "Goal" certificates to children at the end of each game. Firstly it is difficult for us to administrate in cold, wed and muddy conditions and secondly it is perceived that the "goal" certificate could encourage all the players to go "goal hunting" when some are clearly very good in defence / goal keeping.

 

As coaches we feel it is still important to have some form of reward for the "Man of the match" to give the players something to strive for and to perform well on the day. MOTM awards are common practice in all football teams from school training games all the way up to Premier League matches and we do not see this as having a negative impact on the children's performance. Therefore we are going to start awarding 1 MOTM medal (as shown below) at the end of each training game  that we play against another team. The nomination will be at the discretion of the coaches and the player who receives the medal will get to keep it.



 

 

 

 

South Essex Mini Soccer League Update

Dear Parents, after nearly two years of training at Forest Glade we are reaching a pivotal and very exciting point in the children's development where we get to enter team(s) into the South Essex Mini Soccer League commencing this September. The Mini Soccer League will mean we get to play regular 5 a-side matches with other teams from South East Essex both home and away.

In total we have approximately 25 children in the Under 6's which means we potentially have the luxury of being able to submit 3 teams to the league. However before we do this we need to get some feedback and commitment from the parents as to whether your child is willing to play in the league of whether you are just interested in the training on Saturdays? Once we enter the league we will be expected to play either weekly or bi-weekly (normally on Sundays) and will be required to travel for away games (it is expected our furthest game will be Southend region). The games will take place between the normal football season of September to April. It should also be noted that as we are entering into the League next season then the annual fee's are likely to increase to around £140.

Each team that we submit will need to be 7-8 players so that there are reserves to field and each player needs to be registered by the FA and will have an official league card. Once teams are chosen we cannot mix and match players with ease as they will be registered to a specific team and any transfers we make will require a small fee and can take upwards of 3 weeks. Therefore it is vitally important that we get commitment from the parents before we submit any teams to the league.

Over the next week or so can you please either comment on this blog, text Coach Stuart or talk directly with the coaches on Saturday morning to confirm your interest in the child playing in the Under 7's league next season.

For more information on the Mini Soccer League please visit : https://www.ourkidssports.com/Leagues/profile/id/21

Training Saturday 15th February @ Basildon Sporting Village

All, due to the weather forecast and conditions of the pitches at Forest Glade we have decided to move this weeks training to the Basildon Sporting Village from 11am rather than cancel training yet again. Please aim to arrive by 10:45 for a prompt start. Also make sure your children have suitable foot wear for astro turf type surfaces. Map and address for the Sporting Village are detailed below. Also there will be a small payment for training this week as the pitch has cost us £32 to book for an hour which we need to divide amongst the kids (e.g. if 20 kids turn up then additional cost of £1.60 to train).

Cranes Farm Road 
Basildon 
Essex 
SS14 3GR

Sponsor Update

Well the weather may have but a bit of a damper on our football training and matches as of late, however the coaches have been busy, working hard and drumming up plenty of sponsorship for the Forest Glade Under 6's. Through lots of hard work and persistence we have lined up significant sponsorship from Kwikfit, GMB, Anton Group, Serendipity Nursery and Sigma Broking. A special mention must go to Coach Steve who worked hard to procure our most significant funding from Kwikfit. In addition to these sponsors we have received donations from Matt Hall, Jason/Terri Orpwood and Lisa Stanhope. So a big thank you goes out to all of our sponsors and donations for supporting our Under 6's football team.

 

The funding which has been achieved will set our teams up nicely for the next season and most importantly our entry into the mini soccer league next season. We have purchased home and away kits for all the kids (with numbers), boot bags, hoodies, match balls, additional cones (as there is a standing joke regarding the number of cones Jason uses for the warm-ups!) to name just a few items. Without the sponsorship and donations none of this would have been possible without asking the parents to pay directly. So again thank you to everyone.

 

Welcome

Welcome to the all new Forest Glade Under 6's blog. This blog has been established as a central point of communication for all news and information regarding the Forest Glade Under 6 team. We encourage your feedback on the blog and any suggestions for future blogs/articles. Also it would be great if parents and our players left comments on the blog for all to see. Hopefully this will prove an effective means of communication for match dates, team selections, training plans and so on. The blog is as much for the members as it is the coaches and we encourage your input and involvement.