YFS
Central Region (553)
Education and football both go a long way to helping young people grow into adults. Whilst some people may view the technical side of the game as being the most important aspect of the game; Mossend 2003s coach Russell Sanderson, who also acts as the club’s community officer, feels that education and nurturing young players should always be the first priority;
“I think it’s about commitment, about giving something back. I want to give something back, I felt the time was right, my son is 12 now. The way society is now, t’s about nurturing and educating young kids into becoming adults.” Sanderson told Youth Football Scotland.
Sanderson’s involvement with the community and education of player’s stretches back to several years ago, during a match, when one of his player’s was caught up in a racial incident, it left the coach determined to make a difference in the attitude of young players; “It was dealt with at the time, It left a bad taste in my mouth, I didn’t like how it was handled. So one of my friends is the governing director at Kilmarnock, I spoke to him and he said to contact The Red Card. So I did that and they brought the kids to out their education workshop at the Matt Busby centre”, he said.
“We had representatives from Police Scotland, Scotland YMCA and pulled a lot of community people in. I think we've been involved in delivery to about 800 kids and young adults now, Red Card got a grant from Scottish government to do adult delivery, so that will be something different. That’s something I’m interested in doing.”
Sanderson is keen not to limit his influence to just the local community, as he looks to broaden his horizons and make a greater impact abroad; “We have a thing called Mossend Kits for Kids, what we do is we give all the old kits and send them abroad, so it’s not all about educating and nurturing kids in this country. It’s about going elsewhere, and I think it’s the next step. These kids have nothing, they probably don’t have a football and just have a bag wrapped up with rags. We’re doing what we can to help.”
As well as that, the club have set up another initiative called the Well Foundation. With the aim of providing clean drinking water to less fortunate locations, Mossend have already purchased two wells in Pakistan so far, and look to purchase more in the future.
Sanderson finished with an important message, to help the less fortunate: “Our kids are fine, they’re playing football and feeling happy and loving it. But these kids have nothing, so why not give them something?”
Dominant Rossvale Madrid sweep the league and nearly bag the lot
Written by Gregor Kerr
How often does a team win a whopping total of four trophies in a single season, then come inches away from winning the whole lot? Not to mention the fact that Rossvale Madrid didn’t lose nor draw an entire game over the course of the league season? It sounds borderline ridiculous, doesn’t it?
Rossvale did the ridiculous this season. 16 league games and 78 goals after the first ball was kicked, the Bishopbriggs side claimed the Cumbernauld and Kilsyth league title, without a single point dropped. Coach Brian Coyle told Youth Football Scotland that this was down to his side’s constant ‘will to win’, as well as pointing out the ‘togetherness’ within the squad, which kept them on the same page all season and helped them to perform to such consistent levels.
Although Rossvale won a staggering five pieces of silverware, they could have easily completed a clean sweep of domestic trophies, falling away at the semi-final stage in both the League Cup and Scottish Cup, as well as coming runners-up in the Prestatyn Tournament, a feeling that they didn’t experience too often this season.
To add to their dominant league campaign, Rossvale picked up a host of cups; The Killwinning Tournament, Knockout Cup, Jamie Morton Memorial Cup and the Central Region cup all followed, the latter they won 4-2 thanks to an inspired performance from Matthew Laing, who bagged all four goals after starting the game from the bench.
Laing, who found the back of the net on 41 occasions this season, was instrumental along with a host of players, who without them, the trophy haul of 2015/16 may not have been possible.
Fraser Dawson was one of his coach’s picks of the season, as he helped himself to 41 in all competitions throughout the campaign, sharing the same tally as Laing. Dawson is clearly a big-game player himself, contributing seven goals in three semi-finals and one in final, as well grabbing a handful of assists.
It puts the team’s season into perspective when you consider that neither of these players even picked up the top goalscorer award. That honour was earned by Reece Hamilton, who topped the scoring charts with 53 goals in all competitions, and received the joint Player’s Player of the Year along with Kyle gold and Marcus Sampson.
Of course, a great, title-winning side is never successful without a strong defensive spine, and goalkeeper Andrew Coyle provided that solidarity throughout the season, keeping 15 clean sheets and letting the boys upfront do their job effectively.
The team’s coach revealed that he had a good feeling about his side heading into the start of the campaign. He said: “Due to the calibre of players that were brought in to the club at the beginning of the season and the two additions during the season, it was felt by coaches that we had a good chance of winning a few cups. We did just that.”
There can be only one target for the side heading into next season, win all eight competitions next time!
Congratulations to Rossvale Madrid Under 15s, who claimed the following trophies:
- Kilwinning Tournament
- CKDYL Knockout Cup
- Janice Morton Memorial Cup
- SYFA Central Region Cup
- CKDYL Division A
St Ambrose High School hosts charity match for Glasgow Children’s Hospital
Written by Alasdair HooperEast Stirling Boys' fantastic Holland Cup experience
Written by Claire Gulline
The Holland Cup is an international youth football tournament held in Almere, just east of Amsterdam and organised by FC Almere. The event, held over the Easter period, is widely regarded as a leading youth football tournament in Europe and has been run annually for over twenty-five years. Around two thousand teams from twelve countries compete across the various age groups of the event, which is eventually split into the Challenge Cup and the prestigious Holland Cup. One such team who has participated in the tournament, not once but twice, is East Stirling Boys 2002s. Roddy MacPhee, one of the coaches at East Stirling Boys, spoke exclusively to YFS, to share their experience.
As the season draws to a close, there are still aims to fulfil with the side hoping to continue their successful runs in the domestic cups and finish in the top three in the league. MacPhee added, “While we currently sit 5th in the league having played fewer games than everyone else due to our cup demands we hope to start making progress in our ambitions for a top 3 finish in the coming weeks.”JBM continue winning run as Motherwell suffer first defeat
Written by Jim Baxter Memorial FC
After a very dominant performance last week without scoring as many goals as they would of liked, JBM knew they wouldn't have as much of the ball this time around as Motherwell are a good possession side.
The game was less than two minutes old when the deadlock was broken. JBM forced the Motherwell left back to concede a corner, and from the corner, Hamilton rose highest to bullet a header into the back of the net.
Motherwell were shell shocked and were now aware that JBM meant business. Every time that Motherwell got the ball in midfield, the tireless twosome of Malone and Mitchell were constantly closing down and winning the ball back for JBM.
JBM were dominating the early stages of the game and increased their lead midway through the first half. Mitchell gathered the ball forty yard from goal, and danced his way through the Motherwell challenges, and as he reached the edge of the box he superbly curled his effort out of the reach of the keeper and into the bottom corner.
Motherwell came out all guns blazing, looking to get themselves back into the game. The back four of the visitors stood firm however and never looked troubled. JBM increased the lead to 3-0 after Malone had been fouled inside the penalty area. The referee awarded the penalty and luckily for the defender he was only given a yellow card. With the usual penalty takers on the bench, Munro stepped up with confidence and great composure to slot the ball into the bottom corner.
Just before half time, Motherwell were awarded a penalty themselves. A much disputed one I must say but we just get on with it. Goalkeeper Sanderson was unlucky not to save it as the power was just too much for him.
Half Time: Motherwell Community 1-3 Jim Baxter Memorial
The second half kicked off and immediately is was evident to see that the Motherwell players had received the proverbial rocket up their posterior and came out looking like a different team. However, once again this was no match for the JBM defence who continued to win every challenge, every 50/50 ball, and were composed in their defending.
Motherwell were beginning to get frustrated and the referee had to hand out a few yellow cards here and there, and they were eventually reduced to ten men midway through the second half.
JBM continued to contain Motherwell, hitting on the break and where exceedingly unlucky not to add to the lead after McChesney fed an excellent ball to Davenport who was unlucky to see his chance just go wide.
The game was mostly being played in the Motherwell half of the pitch with JBM showing their dominance. Dalziel then fed McChesney with a superb reverse ball and put him in one on one with the defender but the attack fizzled out after some good defending from Motherwell.
With second remaining on the clock, JBM won a free kick thirty yards from goal. Set piece specialist Dalziel stepped up but the keeper saved his superb effort low down in the bottom corner.
That was that, and the performance from the JBM boys was excellent. They should superb discipline from the first whistle to the last despite being on the receiving end from a few heavy Motherwell challenges. The home side conceded their first goals in the league this season and suffered their first defeat also. Great JBM performance.
Full Time: Motherwell Community 1-3 Jim Baxter Memorial
Man of the match: Rennie Hamilton
In the words of Willie Dalziel, "Forza JBM".
Late winner for JBM after dominant display
Written by Jim Baxter Memorial U16
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Sir Alex backs Dunblane Soccer Club's 3G pitch dream
Written by David Kelly.png)
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