Hazel Grove United Under 8's
Update - October 2003

Update written by Keith Garrity

The under 8's season is now up and running with a friendly fixture list set up with local teams.

Our plan is to not to play a match every week, but to ensure the players get chance to learn, we will run a Sunday training session every 3rd week or so to develop their skills and understanding of the game.

Our first match was against Stockport Junior blues where our teams had differing success with an initial 5-1 victory followed by a 6- 0 defeat.

The first game was played at a great pace with the most experienced of the Hazel Grove players totally dominating the game and were unfortunate to concede a goal late on. With Benny Barber, Jo Thompson and Greg Brundrell running things up front with great individual skills, Mikey Crosby strongly dominating the mid field supported by George Noon and Lewis Rogers solid performance at the back. Goalkeeping duties were shared with Scott Leach and Luke Koumourou and with Henry Mitchell and Adam Kendall coming on for their very first every match it was a well deserved win

As this was the very first match for a number of the players in the second game, this was a great learning experience for them and although a disappointing result all the players throughly enjoyed it and played with great determination. Scott Leach lead the team well with Harry Garrity and George Blackwell adding to their experience from last year. Tom Clough Tom Royal, Ben Adams, Josh Glover and Sam Mathieson in goal all made their Hazel Grove debuts.

Sunday 12th October saw us visiting Juno and every player should be justifiably very proud of themselves as, without exception, all played superbly well putting into practise what we had been training on. Passing, movement and finding space.

The line ups had been totally changed to ensure each team included players of all ages abilities and sizes !!( Adam!!) and it worked very well. This enabled us to play 2 very capable sides with a good balance benefiting all the players.

The first game resulted in a 5-1 victory with good performances all round and the second game a 2-2 draw where we unfortunately conceded a very late goal, but again a great team performance. Impressive debuts were made by both Ben Louth in defence and Macauley Lang in goal.

May I also take the opportunity to thank all parents and supporters who came along to both fixtures and really added to the atmosphere and the enjoyment of the players.

Next fixture 19th November against Queensgate Bramhall.

I Look forward to writing another positive report and including team pictures and action