EB Lions AFC

Posted on April 3, 2010

What are we?

As hopefully everyone knows by now, EB Lions AFC is a children's football club for the boys and girls living in and around the villages of Edlesborough, Eaton Bray, Dagnall and Northall.

Formed in 1994, the Club has grown enormously particularly over the last 7 years and now has 16 teams this season 2009-10, with 200 children, predominantly living in the village, playing competitive and active team sport. We have boys and girls teams ranging from Under 5's up to U15's and have 35 brilliant coaches, almost all of whom are FA qualifi ed, all hold CRB checks and are all devoted to creating fun, improving fi tness, technique, team spirit and above all else confi dence and great memories.

Please look us up on our website - www.eblions.co.uk

News

The 2009-10 season is starting to draw to an end and we are busy planning for our end of season awards, registrations for 2010-11 as well as all of the housekeeping necessary to kit out the 18 teams and 220 players we are anticipating for next season. We will be having our End of Season Presentation Day on Saturday 26th June 2010 - details to be announced shortly!

New Players and Teams

There is a real and strong demand for village based football now, where the skill levels, coaching and development of players and teams is among the best in the county. This also allows the boys and girls to play with their classmates and friends. Whilst we have been hugely successful in stimulating demand and our teams are all of a good size and standard, we do have a small number of opportunities still available in certain age groups/teams and these are detailed in our advert in this months Focus.

We are now actively seeking new players for the following;-

1. boys and girls year 1 (next seasons Under 7's),
2. girls in school year 3 and 4 - A new Girls team for (next seasons Under 10 Girls).
3. boys and girls reception year - to eventually form 2 new teams for our U7's season 2011.
4. girls in school year 6 and 7 - to support our U12 who play 9 a side football next season.

We would particularly like to hear from you if you fall into these age bands - please email us at [email protected]

Sponsors

We are again looking for sponsorship for the new teams - we hope to fi nd a local sponsor to advertise on a team kit and we actively encourage all of our members and supporters to support our sponsors.

Currently we are pleased to have the support of 15 sponsors, including CHRISTOPHER PALLET who have kindly sponsored our U12 boys team for 2 seasons and PINSTRIPES, where Penni and her team have sponsored our U9 Whites for this season and next.

If you are, or know of any local business that would be interested in supporting us next season please contact us at [email protected] to learn how this might boost your local profile for a modest outlay and support youth sport in and around the villages.

Congratulations

As part of our club development plan we aim to ensure that all of our volunteers gain recognition, qualifi cation or at least enjoyment from all of their hard work! In particular we require that each team has at least one qualified coach at FA Level 1 - we now possibly have more qualifi ed coaches than any other junior club in the county with 18 coaches qualifi ed at FA Level 1 or taking the exam shortly. We also have 7 FA level 2 qualifi ed coaches and the most recent additions to this impressive line-up is Tony Farnfi eld (U8), Bryan Wright (U11 Girls) and Colin Bradley (U12) who have achieved Level 2. Paul Cook, Tim Sanders, Colin Bradley and Nick Bramston have now booked up for level 3 (their UEFA B Licence (FA Level 3) in June 2010 - look out Mr Capello!

Also, we were delighted to hear that our Under 8 Blues were winners of the County Fair Play team of the season 2010 award and by the time you read this will have received this at a presentation on the pitch at Kenilworth Road before Luton Town vs Wrexham. This is a great recognition for our players and coaches by their league and Bedfordshire Football Association.

Website

After a few years as our webmaster Russell Sears is stepping down and Richard Potten has kindly agreed to take on this modern day necessity for any serious group. Many thanks to Russell for his fantastic work and good luck to Richard.

All-weather training facility

We are currently looking into the feasibility of developing an all-weather training facility in the village to allow all of our teams to train throughout the winter months in a safe local environment. For the last two seasons we have had portable fl oodlights that have saved travelling into Dunstable or Leighton Buzzard but despite their portability the grass areas used at Edlesborough School and The Green just can not withstand the demands placed by the large numbers of junior players that we have regularly training in addition to the weekend matches.

With the support of Eaton Bray Parish Council and St Mary's Church we have identified a plot of land in Eaton Bray that is perfect for our needs - this is at an early stage but would be a fantastic facility for EB Lions - there are a lot of hurdles yet to overcome with fundraising and planning permissions currently in our sights. We would also love to hear from anyone that has expertise to help us with such a project and also any other clubs, groups or associations that could give additional usage to an artifi cial surface of 30m x 60m - please contact us.

Soccer Buddies

Finally look out for our brand new piece of innovative kit - with the support of Bovis Lend Lease (Jason Reynolds), a youth development grant from Aylesbury Vale DC PAYP scheme and a substantial equipment grant from Central Beds District Council, we have bought 10 soccer buddies, 10 iGoals, renovated new goals at the Rye and specialist training equipment all totalling almost £6,000.

These Soccer Buddy mannequins are training aids in full EB Lion kit, designed to improve shooting accuracy and dribbling ability. On top of this we have our very own Speed Buddy to record the speed of a shot, which we are planning on presenting at the Village Carnival in July to see who can claim the hardest shot in the village!

Source: Focus, April 2010