Club chairman, Rich kicked off the club presentation with the Charter Standard Club awards. Once again we have won the Birmingham County and Regional awards for Club of the Year. In fact we were introduced at the recent Grassroots show as Club of the Decade by Heidi Lockyer who as the Senior Development Officer should know! Our progress from formation in 2002 has been startling but it’s the off the field opportunities that we offer our players that gets us the extra recognition. From under 14 onwards our players are offered coaching qualifications, refereeing opportunities and First Aid along with further education such as Duke of Edinburgh awards and even GCSEs via the ASDAN wider key skills.
Barry then gave thanks to the club’s management committee, a small group who freely give extra time behind the scenes. Thanks also to all our managers, all of whom have at least a level 1 coaching award along with Child Protection, First Aid and are CRB checked. Further acknowledgement to all the parents who do that bit extra for the son’s or daughter’s teams, the ones who collect subs and put nets up. Bouquets were given out for Dawn for her superb organisation skills in ensuring such a big club presentation runs smoothly and also to Shelley who organised the boys section’s tour this year, 5 teams with a total cost of about £30k, all managed faultlessly.
Rich introduced the first of our players’ awards, as recorded on the Lil Lion page all season, the race for top goalkeeper and top goal scorer. (you can see the final tables at the end of this page)
Top Girl Gk: was very close with Daniella from the U13s pushing all the way, but ultimately missing out. Her 11 clean sheets in 24 games being outdone by 0.01 of a clean sheet per game, 8 clean sheets in 17 games winning the award for the under 11 girls Gk NATALIE.
Club Top Keeper: 2 boys dominated the charts all season from the U10s and U8s. For the U10s, Jamie just beat a 50% record with 14 clean sheets in 27 games. The winner though scored a hugely impressive 17 clean sheets in 22 games, that’s only 5 games all season that he actually conceded a goal. So impressive in fact that Coventry academy has snapped him up. For the U8 boys, its CIAN.
Top Boy Goalscorer: A new player, this season and a first award for the U11 boys. In his first season with Coundon Court and his first season of 11 a side.DANIEL hit 28 goals in his 16 games, that’s a super record of 1.75 goals per game.
Club Top Goalscorer: She started off with 8 in her first 2 games, but then allowed Jess, U11 girls and Daniel, U11 boys, to catch her and it looked like she wasn’t going to win, but 8 goals in her last 3 games sealed the shield for another new player to Coundon Court, with an impressive 37 goals in 21 games, she’s just 9 and played her first season for the under 10 girls, LIA.
The Coundon Court League table, also published weekly on the Lil Lion page decides our top teams and Baz introduced our 2 winning teams;
Top Girls team: A very special achievement from our best girls team this season. Playing in a league the equivalent of the boys’ Midland Premier League, in that its not just a Coventry league but takes in a massive area, all of Birmingham, including Walsall, Tamworth in the North and Stratford in the south. Such is the standard that a lot of teams from outside the Birmingham County area enter this league. The teams are all from big clubs with big areas to recruit from, quite a few linked to non-league or semi pro clubs, such as Redditch and Solihull, and West Brom, Derby, Walsall and Leamington. It’s a league that we only entered for the first time in 2006 and some of our girls’ teams have struggled in it. In fact this very team finished bottom without a win in their under 10s season, but they have really come on since that first season, improving year on year. This season these girls really went for it, playing with confidence and not a little style they won the cup at a canter and went into the last game of the season needing a win, anything else would give the title to Redditch. They pulled out a massive performance away from home against a team who had previously beaten them, to take the league title by a point. This is a milestone for all Coundon Court girls’ teams and reinforces the message that; you can achieve great things. It’s the first league title, the first cup win and the first double for one of our girls’ teams. They are my team and I am immensely proud of their massive achievement, the U13s GIRLS.
Top Performing Team: This is the second time in 3 years a team that won the double did not make best performing team in the club. It is also the 3rd time our under 8s team has won it. The under 8s league is a non-competitive league in that league tables are not published and they are not allowed to play a cup competition. The last time it ran as a competitive league our under 8s won it. They would also have won it last year, and this team would have won it this year. That’s 3 different teams from Coundon Court, we dominate the under 8s in Coventry. Such is our prestige now at this younger age group that its not unusual for players to travel from Stratford and Lutterworth to play for Coundon Court. The professional academies are all over us and Coventry and Birmingham have taken 8 players from our U8s over the last 3 years. We are proud to have helped in the development of those players. This particular team has possibly been the best the club has seen so far. All our club records have been smashed; they put together 25 consecutive wins. Then this season kept 17 clean sheets and scored 112 goals, all in just 22 games. Managed by Paul Sweeney, the U8 BOYS are our top performing team.
The final tables:
