Our website has had an update and whilst looking through it I was shocked to see that there hasn’t been a blog since June and that last blog was about football returning following the first lockdown… and here we are in lockdown 2.0! So apologies for that….I thought I would do a quick blog to update everyone on a few things that have happened since we have had football back for what seems like a very brief period of time.
The club has worked tirelessly over the summer with all sections of the club to improve things on and off the pitch. The committee had to get everything ready to adhere to government/FA guidelines to bring about a safe return to football and successfully managed this.
We appointed a new youth secretary who brings plenty of experience to the club and who has been busy registering everyone with the league. We also moved all of our players/parents/carers onto a game management app (Spond) which is going really well and making it so easy to communicate with people and push updates out to individuals or teams/groups. This really does makes the match day management side of things so easy for the coaches and all we would ask is when you get an invite, if you could respond to it as soon as you can one way or another!
The committee were also successful in obtaining a grant from the football foundation to purchase 2 sets of aluminium goals for the youth teams and these will be a real valuable asset for the club over the years.
We were able to secure 3 new kit sponsors for the Under 7’s, 8’s and 10’s as well as a sponsor of training tops for the whole of the youth set up which should arrive any day now (more news on this to follow shortly) A big thanks must go out to Billy Binyon of BB Secure Systems, John and his Velocirocktors and Redrow Homes for sponsoring the new kits. We really do appreciate the sponsorship and it is invaluable for clubs just starting out without kits. As the years go on, some of the kits will be able to be passed down and used by the next age group coming up which should remove the need to buy a match kit every season. You can find a link to these sponsors on the home page of our website and if you can support them by following/liking their social media pages or even better, using or recommending their services it would be great.
We have also worked very hard on recruitment over the summer and we will continue to do so. We are fast approaching a 100 youth members across all sections now. This will be the next milestone that we are working towards. When we started this project in the Summer of 2019 there were 10 children representing the club….
On the pitch, our newly formed under 7 and 8 teams have started the season well and the new managers and coaches are doing brilliantly with training sessions and also with the matchday experiences, which are new to both sets of managers/coaches. Our Under 10’s continue to go from strength to strength and have also recruited some new players recently. Our Under 10’s were also able to have a socially distanced presentation evening out the playing fields back in July which saw Blake win Managers Player of the Year and Top Goal Scorer, Noah was voted as the Players Player of the year and Harry was voted as most improved player of the season. It was nice to be able to celebrate the season that this group of players had in their first season for the club. The committee will shortly start planning for a presentation day next year, however, it is very difficult to plan for anything at the moment that involves a gathering of people 🙁
Our Dinky Dons sessions continue with increasing numbers every week and that is a testament to Gabe and Rob who take the sessions and make them fun every week. Well done guys.
One of the biggest successes for the club has arguably been the launch of the FA Wildcats Sessions. These were initially due to start in April but Lockdown 1.0 put a stop to that. However, we have now been able to host 4 sessions since the start of October and attendance has been fantastic, with between 14-17 players at every session. The feedback from the players and also the parents/carers has been so positive and it is clear to see that in future the club will have to ensure that there is an offer of football for girls from the local area.
Given all of the above, it is really difficult to take lockdown 2.0 and another break away from football, especially seeing everyone coming to training with a smile on their face 🙁
To end on a positive note, the club will be announcing details of another sponsorship deal this week which has enabled the club to purchase 90 training tops for every member of the club.
We have also put a link to the top of our website for our shop! There are some items already live if you want to start your Christmas shopping! the club earns a little bit of money back from each item sold via the shop platform too.
I promise not to leave it so long before someone publishes a blog next time.
Until then, stay safe, have a look around the website now it has been updated and keep your eyes peeled on our social media for news/updates.
I will leave you with some pictures of the highlights of the club from the last couple of months.
Up the Dons
