Well here we go again for season 2008/2009. It’s all aboard the roller coaster for another season of ups and downs; thrills and spills that make us all love the game of football. With David McConnachie in place as the new head of youth development and new coaches involved with all age levels I am sure we are in for another great season of youth team football.

All of the squads are now well in to the pre season training and looking forward to kicking off the new season, which is not too far away. Parents’ evenings have been held and players signed, apart from those on holiday, so now we just need to get down to the football.

The season begins this Sunday (10 August) for the under 19’s with a tough fixture against Dunfermline Athletic, followed by an away game against Airdrie on 17 August. The Dunfermline game will be played at Borough Briggs with a 2pm kick off. David Geddes’s team have played a couple of friendlies and also played the Forres Mechanics first team in the North of Scotland cup, performing well in all the games played. Several of the under 19’s have already been involved with the first team this season with Ian Anderson, Brian Cameron and Duncan Mcphee named as substitutes for all the first team fixtures so far this season, well done lads. This season we have a very young under 19 team with the majority of players aged just 17, and some still only 16 but they have already proved they are up for the challenging season that awaits them. As I write this I have just received an e-mail to let us know we have a bye in the 1st round of the SFA Youth cup so will automatically go in to the second round draw.

The season is still a couple of weeks away for our younger teams. This season Elgin City will be represented in the SFL youth initiative system at under 16’s, 15’s and 14’s. The fixtures have not yet been announced yet for these teams but matches will begin on 24 August. The lads will travel to far flung places such as Ayr, Stranraer and this season a nice local derby against Ross County to name but a few.   All of these squads have seen several new players arrive giving even stronger competition for places than ever before, which is very healthy as every player knows he has to fight for his place. Once again we are lucky enough to be given the use of RAF Lossiemouth to train and play games and Elgin City would like to express our sincere thanks to all those who are involved in allowing us to use this facility. Without this facility we would certainly struggle on the dark and frozen nights that lesser borough can not take. One of our new coaches is a PTI from Lossiemouth, Andy Collins, who is putting the lads through some tough but enjoyable pre season training in the gym. Andy has been carrying out circuit training sessions with the lads to ensure that we will have some of the fittest players in the league. I watched a session tonight and whilst the players were tired they all enjoyed it and worked very hard from start to finish.

The 13's are back training after holding a series of trial sessions to ensure we have the best players available to us. Last seasons 12's have been strengthened with some excellent new players from all over Moray.  The under 13’s will once again play in the Moray Youth Development league and under the guidance of John and Neil they will be aiming to follow on from the success of last season. This year will be splitting the under 13’s in half. One team will play in the under 13 league and the other under 13 team will play in the under 14 section of the Moray Youth Development league. There is no doubt this will be a tough challenge for the lads but we are sure they will do the club proud and by playing an age group above themselves, will help their development both in a football and physical sense preparing them for SFL initiative football in 2009/2010.
 
Training at RAF Lossiermouth, the players have been learning the transition form 7-aside football to 11-aside.  The Moray Youth Development League has a rule for the the first half of the season by deploying a 28-yard retreat line.  This line enables the teams to release the ball form the back and play football, we have encouraged our players to play out of defence and built from the back four, through midfield to the strikers. 
The team have just played their first 11-aside match, where they demonstrated these options to the full and finished with some excellent movement and wonderful goals.  The whole squad are working extremely hard at training with some very tired legs; however they are developing as a unit.

Finally, I will do my best to inform you of every fixture that the youth teams are playing and where they are playing. I will also try to keep you up to date with regular reports and details of the youth side of Elgin City.
May I just ask that if, and when, you get the chance to watch our youth teams play then go along and support the boys, your support is always appreciated and who knows, you might be watching one of the future stars of Elgin City FC.

Joe Mackay
Youth Coordinator