This was another extraordinary season. And yet the club continues to grow. This season we had 36 PTJ teams and 2 AFC Petersfield teams (34 youth teams, 2 girls, 1 mens and 1 occasional vets team). Our teams played in 4 leagues: North-East Hants (31 teams), Hampshire Girls (2 teams), Portsmouth Youth League (2 teams) and Hampshire Premier League.
When we came back from lockdown in March most leagues abandoned the league tables
and switched to festival or cup matches, and friendlies, some continuing on until the end of
June. Only NEHYL U15s, PYFL and HGYFL completed the season. So no league titles this year for PTJ teams, but a mention for Mark Chinnock’s U16 Phantoms who were top of the premier division when the league was abandoned. Several teams did win league cups or plates in the end of season competitions, including U8 Glory, U10 Raiders, U11 Vipers, U16 Predators. Julian Chun's Predators also won the U16 Sportsmanship award.
Thank you to all our volunteers for giving so many local kids, and a few grown-ups, the opportunity to play football this season, when permitted, despite all the risk assessments, social distancing, etc.
Ben Bentley has taken on the task of membership secretary and registering 500 or more players through the season (Ben could give you the exact number!) setting up the online club registration via membermojo, so teams and the club can communicate with our members. Ben then registers club players with the FA and leagues. It all works very smoothly thanks to Ben.
Thanks to Isaac Oru for doing the weekly pitch allocations for home fixtures, which makes
the club secretary's weekly workload much more manageable.
Nigel Gardner as always does far too much, including covid officer, sorting out hand gel and assistant referee flags and all that, engaging the next generation of players, running sessions for the U6 and U7s, as well as U9 and U11 girls, every week, sets up and finds sponsors and volunteers to run new teams each season, handles a continuous flow of new player enquiries for the U8-U10s, completely overhauled the winter training rota this season, runs the PTJ facebook page, sweeps up, wipes down, and generally takes care of the Love Lane pavilion… We all owe him a big debt!
A number of roles are currently vacant including:
- social media manager
- social secretary
- Love Lane facilities manager
- catering manager
- kit manager
- head of mens football (senior and youth teams)
We would be delighted to hear from potential new volunteers. Please contact a committee member to find out more about these roles.
Many thanks to our Child Welfare Officer, Julia Nesbitt, for doing this critical role. As well as responding to individual problems as they arise she is also the key person for volunteers to get their FA DBS checks started or renewed, and completed. TJ Fagbayi is our assistant CWO and that will help share that role.
For 2021/22 season we expect to have four new U8s teams again this season, and two new girls teams, at U10s and U12s, but we are still looking for managers for those two! Altogether we expect to have 39 PTJ teams (from U8 to U18s, including 4 girls teams), plus two AFC Petersfield teams (mens and veterans, over-35s), marking a record number of 41 teams!