End of Season Report 2010/11
25 Apr 2011

Spencers Wood Under 10’s Whirlwinds.
Managers Report for Season 2010/11.

At the start of the Season, the Whirlwinds squad was very depleted having lost three of our best players, Ella Cook who had joined Reading Ladies Elite, the Guinness twins Ryan and Lucas and their Coach Dad Ian, who had emigrated to Canada.

We had a bare seven players at the off and from this we strived to build again with the signing of Leo from Milton Keynes who could play every other weekend and then a few weeks later we signed a new lad Joseph who had never played before but has constantly improved week after week at an incredible rate.
This gave us a regular 8 players and every other week 9, so we now had what we saw as a viable squad.

The help I have received with Administration has been great thanks to Matt and I had much more help with the coaching thanks to Matts nephew Russell and Mike Cook, who was now taking a much more active role in the team.

Our season was progressing well in the League and the cup, only losing two games up until the end of November. Then came the bad weather that we all remember only too well, postponing many a game for everyone.

In late November I had a back operation and in my absence, weather permitting, Matt and Mike stepped up and ran the coaching until the New Year.
We did manage to get one game on in December, a cup game against a team a league above us.
The guys did a fantastic job in winning this one 5-2, and I really did enjoy coming to watch the game as a spectator and thought I did very well in restraining myself from shouting ‘man on’ and ‘line ball’ as is the usual case !

In the New Year we signed on Scott, Alison and Glens boy, who now added even more strength and versatility to our squad, and whenever the under 9’s had no game Scott would play for us.

We were doing very well in the league and we even had a few games in hand on some of the other teams, our cup run was impressive although adding problems to our ever growing fixture congestion.

This run saw us progress to the last eight, the quarter finals, and we were drawn away against a Bracknell Town side who were running away with our League and had a goal difference of plus fifty something goals at the half way stage.

We led this game three times and with two minutes left in the second period of extra time we were winning 3-2, then along came a young Maradonna who scored two goals in two minutes that destroyed our dream. But to get this far with only seven or eight players at some games was a real achievement in itself and a credit to our very strong team spirit and determination.

We were now five games behind some teams in our league, and for a while we had only seven players it seemed for a lot of games, as we lost Ethan to an Achilles injury that threatened to rule him out for the rest of the Season.
It was all to play for in our League and I did have a feeling we could achieve something if we could just get through this difficult period but it did seem for a while that everything was against us.
The one thing no one could predict was how well a team without any substitutes would bond and step up to the mark, they won 4 out of 4 games.

Four weeks ago we signed Ben from the Wildcats, who had finished the Season much earlier than us, and also Curtis another player from the under 9’s, this helped boost our numbers, and now Ethan is also making a return.

We still have one game to play on 23rd April at Home, but we had secured the Runners Up place in our League with 3 games in hand, so it has been our most successful season to date, in securing promotion to Division four, and reaching the quarter finals of the cup.

Our league form has seen us play 19, Win 13, Draw 3 and lose 3 since the League kicked off last September 11th.

The story so far in total if we add the cup games into the equation is that we have played 23 games so far, Winning 16, Drawing 3 and losing only 4 all Season.

Our squad has 3 under 9 children and is mixed of both Girls and Boys. We have beaten 3 teams a league above us in the cup run this year and we are relishing the challenge of proving ourselves in Division 4 next year.

We have another new player training with us now, and with the solid structure and organization of our team the future of the Whirlwinds looks exciting.

It has been more than difficult at times this Season but that makes it all the more memorable coming runners up in our league and getting to the quarter finals of the cup.