As the football season is again underway we look at the Longlevens Football Club. This progressive club whose 1st Team are the current County league champions were promoted to the Helenic West League for this season and what a start the team has made!
Already, as we go to print they are unbeaten League leaders, scoring more goals that any other team by some margin. It is not surprising therefore that Longlevens have 4 Players in the Top goal scoring category. Craig Martin leads the way with 6 goals followed by Sean O’Connor and Ryan Hughes on 5, with Adie Hemming on 4 goals.
Ambitious Manager, James French has astutely improved his squad, by persuading several players from local clubs to join him. James is now happy with his current squad and with lots of competition for a team place; it provides the players with the incentive to maintain their form. Let’s hope that the team’s early form can be maintained throughout the season.
The 2nd, 3rd and 4th Adult teams will each be challenged this season, as they too are all playing in higher and stronger leagues. They prepared really well in pre–season training and have a significant number of additional young adult players joining the teams. This situation has generated a healthy optimism about this season and a high degree of expectation that each team will do well!
The Longlevens AFC Youth Section goes from strength to strength, with a further 3 teams joining, this season from the Longlevens Infants Academy. This now established link is allowing the Players to continue football during the transition from Infants to Youth football. In three years the number of teams has increased 2 to 7 and hopefully by 2017 there will be teams representing Longlevens Youth from U12’s to U18’s.
There are 4 teams at U12 competing in Mid Gloucester (Scorpions & Tigers) and the Cheltenham League (Lions & Leopards). The Lions have made a tremendous start and are currently top of the Cheltenham Division 1! New Managers Andy Griffiths and John Bricknell are delighted and are now looking to consolidate their team’s position.
The U12 teams have been training together at Longford lane with as many as 40 players attending the sessions. All the Coaches are involved in improving the players Skills and Stamina whilst Scorpions Coach Lee Martin provides specialist goalkeeping coaching. The photo shows Lee with the U12’s goalkeepers.
Luke Kavanagh and Ed Smylie are current 1st Team Players, who are now into their second season of coaching the U14’s in the Gloucester Youth League and enjoy combining their Plying / Coaching roles at Longlevens.
Finally, Daren Baldwin manages and coachers the U15 team and was the first coach to transfer from the Infants three seasons ago. Daren has established a strong team, who last season were runners up in both the League and Cup to a very successful Lydney team. The team will be tested again this season as they are in a combined U15/U16 division of the Gloucester league.
At U13, Jake Ellway and Jimmy Scurr are experiencing their first roles as Youth Manager / Coach. Jake and Jimmy play for the Longlevens Adult teams and have made an immediate impact with their squad. They think their team is very talented and the players are always prepared to listen and learn. This team could play really well this season.
Finally, to organise pitches for 7 Youth teams and 4 Adult teams over a week end, is an extremely difficult situation; however, this problem could be alleviated, if the sports field on Innesworth lane became available to the Youth teams? The Club has recently, submitted an application to the Gloucester City Council for use of the pitch and pavilion at this location, which has been redundant since the severe flooding of 2007. Although, there would be a huge amount of work required to get the ground fit for matches, the commitment of Committee, Coaches and Players at the club would ensure that the facility would become an asset for the Youth teams. With so much in progress and commitment in abundance, the future is certainly looking very bright for All the teams at LonglevensAFC.
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