Buckhurst Hill u/9 JPL just fall short in the Nationals

 BHFC u/9,s just fell short Saturday of making the National cup final  coming 2nd in their group with a convincing 6-0 win against the eventual group winners ,but just fell short with 2 draws. As a group we have a very good team with supportive parents, Purfleet every Saturday afternoon is not everyone's cup of tea as its a central venue and all games are played at the Harris Academy with kick offs ranging from 1-4pm, I try to make as many games as possible but with Leyton Orient having such a great season and family commitments every week isn't possible, but the team is in good hands with Ben, Steve and Leigh. 

I have had our u/18,s some since the age of 6 and most of our group season 22/23 have been with the club over a long period, in my experience  the longer you have players the more time you have to work with the small details and  stamp your own philosophy/values on a group. 

If I can take a few things away from the season taking away goals and wins It would definitely be 

Work rate when they don't have the ball.

No blame culture 

Value of the "cutback"

Ability to play out from the back under pressure /when to go long.

I coach an u/13 team on Tuesdays and its taken nearly year to get some of these in place, last night playing up a year there was definitely signs of all the above. 

I look forward to continue to work with the u/9s and support Leigh, Steve and Ben next season. 

Massive achievement from the u/9,s this season in their first season in the JPL/

BHFC 6- 0  3fc 

BHFC 1 - 1 Cheltenham Town  

BHFC 2-2 Socca 

Berkswith beat 3fc on penalties to win the final. 

#COYROYALS 

Buckhurst Hill u/9 JPL win the Regional Championship

Dartford FC v  Buckhurst Hill u9 Championship final 

Buckhurst Hill win on penalties.

5 players, Denzel, Freddie, James, Herman & Joel, in the U9s team have played together since u/4 coming through BHFC’s mini soccer program, which I coached for seven years. I have coached these players for 5 years. This is our first season in the Junior Premier League and this playoff was our second consecutive final losing to CM futsal in the last series of games on penalties. 

Buckhurst Hill started the stronger team with Freddie going twice 1 on 1 with the Dartford GK in the first 7 minutes. A great save from the Dartford GK from the left foot of Leo. Finally we broke the dead lock. We have been working on cut backs during our winter hibernation on the futsal court so pleasing to see George hitting the line to cut back for Leo to slot home with his weaker foot.

George just before half time hit the bar with a thunderous right foot strike

The second was a great team goal starting with Maxim playing through the thirds with 4 passes for George to slot home 2-0 BHFC.

The second period was a lot more even Maxim making some great stops to thwart the Dartford attack. The Junior Premier League has no retreat line so I have been helping them with how to mark players so teams can’t play out from the back forcing teams to go long and as I said to them yesterday my money was on Lorken and Pani to pick up any balls into the central areas ( I believe this is now called setting traps

) 

Unfortunately on 2 occasions later in the second period we let Dartford in and they equalised with 2 good goals. 

We went into the third period the stronger team and came close with 4 or 5 attempts, so penalties it was. I have to be honest I fancied our chances. Maxim is a good shot stopper the first Dartford player shot high over the bar and Denzil slotted hard and low into the bottom corner. Maxim saved the second penalty so we only had to score our second to win the game. George stepped up and casually put it low into the GKs left corner two fantastic penalties to win the tie. 

Our season has had it’s challenges but as a team, players, coaches and parents we stuck together.  Ben and Steve make the games every week and Leigh holds us all together. 

We have had some great additions to the squad, choked for Tommy that he was on holiday and couldn’t make the game. The next stop is the Nationals an early KO 29/04/23 

Stuart Blake