Fleetwood Town "academy". Whats the craic? 

14 hours ago, Dr Faustus said:

Didn’t need DBS checks or seatbelts in the back of a transit van either. One of my old coaches got done for having 1000s of images on his laptop, still… good ol days 

Did he pull you off at Half-Time?

 

Made me laugh

 

 

 

Dude throwing hands in dryrobe

 

 

 

 

26 minutes ago, gonzo said:

Dude throwing hands in dryrobe

 

 

 

 

Fuck dealing with this on a weekend in any capacity, ref, coach, player or parent on the sideline.

13 year old lad having to pull his dad away from a scrap over kids footy is a shitshow.

 

Edited February 23Feb 23 by BeeversLeftPeg

11 hours ago, gonzo said:

Dude throwing hands in dryrobe

 

 

 

 

Dryrobe wankers 😂 (I've got a snide one by the way)

Ajay Tavares moved to Barca from Norwich. 4m. He’s not done his GCSEs yet!

Fulwood Amateurs away for the boy. Cup game and they're a league above - never beaten them before. Really don't like their coach, within 10 seconds of meeting him he will tell you how he was on United's books as a kid.

Hope we batter em

Lost 3-2 which is good seeing as they scored 6, 8 and 7 past us in the last three games. The good form continues.

1 hour ago, Kane57 said:

Lost 3-2 which is good seeing as they scored 6, 8 and 7 past us in the last three games. The good form continues.

Development is more important than a win. Confidence will grow

42 minutes ago, Dr Faustus said:

Development is more important than a win. Confidence will grow

Yep was very pleased. I would have fancied us on pens too 

Our lads moved up a section after a really good run after New Year. Lost 9-5 yesterday morning, first game on grass in 6 weeks. 

Some of them are terrified of getting muddy and wet which isn't great on grass in the winter in the UK!

Thinking of getting them to do a couple of sessions on grass as opposed to 3G to try and get them used to it. They'd have hated the pitches we played on late 90's of a weekend!

9 hours ago, BeeversLeftPeg said:

Our lads moved up a section after a really good run after New Year. Lost 9-5 yesterday morning, first game on grass in 6 weeks. 

Some of them are terrified of getting muddy and wet which isn't great on grass in the winter in the UK!

Thinking of getting them to do a couple of sessions on grass as opposed to 3G to try and get them used to it. They'd have hated the pitches we played on late 90's of a weekend!

We never saw grass for months, bulk of the season was played purely on mud.

27 minutes ago, Traf said:

We never saw grass for months, bulk of the season was played purely on mud.

Nothing smells nicer than the freshly mown pitch for that first game of preseason. Still takes me back to being a kid. 
 

Jean Paul Gaultier Classique in second place 

12 hours ago, BeeversLeftPeg said:

Some of them are terrified of getting muddy and wet which isn't great on grass in the winter in the UK!

I'm a good 20yrs older.

One pitch in a park in Burnley held water for the central third so deep you needed to produce a swimming certificate to be allowed to play.

You're saying some kids today don't fancy getting muddy, or wet ? They must live very sheltered lives.

9 minutes ago, Dr. Feelgood said:

I'm a good 20yrs older.

One pitch in a park in Burnley held water for the central third so deep you needed to produce a swimming certificate to be allowed to play.

You're saying some kids today don't fancy getting muddy, or wet ? They must live very sheltered lives.

I think the amount of 3G pitches has played a massive part in. It was unheard of to be playing on astroturf when I was a kid.

8 hours ago, BeeversLeftPeg said:

I think the amount of 3G pitches has played a massive part in. It was unheard of to be playing on astroturf when I was a kid.

But we had the days when astroturf was basically green sandpaper - none of this 3G and 4G stuff. We took the preference of washing some mud off to having a double leg skin graft

50 minutes ago, Eddie said:

But we had the days when astroturf was basically green sandpaper - none of this 3G and 4G stuff. We took the preference of washing some mud off to having a double leg skin graft

Further back it was either a concrete playground or at high school an 'all weather' pitch which was anything but.

That Moss Bank pitch closest to the main road was always a nightmare if you were on the (lower) wing. There'd be a game of football going on at the side of you, while you and your opposite number were recreating 1917's Ypres. 

10 hours ago, Dr. Feelgood said:

I'm a good 20yrs older.

One pitch in a park in Burnley held water for the central third so deep you needed to produce a swimming certificate to be allowed to play.

You're saying some kids today don't fancy getting muddy, or wet ? They must live very sheltered lives.

We had a team cancel a game on us the other week because three of their lads have severe anxiety and can't play away games. They're 9.

1 hour ago, Duck Egg said:

Further back it was either a concrete playground or at high school an 'all weather' pitch which was anything but.

That Moss Bank pitch closest to the main road was always a nightmare if you were on the (lower) wing. There'd be a game of football going on at the side of you, while you and your opposite number were recreating 1917's Ypres. 

There was an old all weather pitch near is growing up. Like playing on gravel. A few games won on aggregate 😂

40 minutes ago, Kane57 said:

We had a team cancel a game on us the other week because three of their lads have severe anxiety and can't play away games. They're 9.

That’s messed up. Poor kids, surely they could work around it somehow? 

35 minutes ago, Dr Faustus said:

That’s messed up. Poor kids, surely they could work around it somehow? 

Stop telling them they have anxiety would be a start.

Confirmed

The BBDFL is pleased to confirm that the league will be adopting The FA’s new Youth Development Pathway. From the 2026/27 season, this will introduce revised age-appropriate playing formats designed to support player development and increase involvement in the game. The updated pathway will see U7s play 3v3 football, U8–U9 play 5v5, U10–U11 play 7v7, U12–U13 play 9v9, with the transition to 11v11 moving to U14 level. These changes aim to maximise ball contact, improve technical development and ensure young players progress through formats suited to their age and stage of development. 
 

So, despite my personal thoughts, my club are bypassing this and entering a team a year up- which will likely see them at a disadvantage.

5 hours ago, Dr Faustus said:

Confirmed

The BBDFL is pleased to confirm that the league will be adopting The FA’s new Youth Development Pathway. From the 2026/27 season, this will introduce revised age-appropriate playing formats designed to support player development and increase involvement in the game. The updated pathway will see U7s play 3v3 football, U8–U9 play 5v5, U10–U11 play 7v7, U12–U13 play 9v9, with the transition to 11v11 moving to U14 level. These changes aim to maximise ball contact, improve technical development and ensure young players progress through formats suited to their age and stage of development. 
 

So, despite my personal thoughts, my club are bypassing this and entering a team a year up- which will likely see them at a disadvantage.

Most clubs are bypassing it, so the leagues are going to look very strange with a huge u8 league and each 2 years above them also expanded by teams moving up a year to move to the next sized game, and the in-between leagues being tiny.

Participation numbers will be interesting to compare for this reduced format, and this ultimately should be the FAs number one metric of success.

16 hours ago, Dr Faustus said:

Confirmed

The BBDFL is pleased to confirm that the league will be adopting The FA’s new Youth Development Pathway. From the 2026/27 season, this will introduce revised age-appropriate playing formats designed to support player development and increase involvement in the game. The updated pathway will see U7s play 3v3 football, U8–U9 play 5v5, U10–U11 play 7v7, U12–U13 play 9v9, with the transition to 11v11 moving to U14 level. These changes aim to maximise ball contact, improve technical development and ensure young players progress through formats suited to their age and stage of development. 
 

So, despite my personal thoughts, my club are bypassing this and entering a team a year up- which will likely see them at a disadvantage.

We discussed this for our lads after the meeting this week. 

For this years current U8's, playing a year up would put them at a huge disadvantage. Not only is it adjusting to 7v7 and playing teams a year older, but they'll be up against teams that have already played a full season 7v7.

Think even though ideally we would prefer to play 7v7, we'll stick another year at 5v5.

The system was fine as it was.