Glasshoughton Welfare
11th and reaching the semi-final of the League Cup . It gave the club a bit of life and everyone who comes down to our games tends to return because of the happy family atmosphere .
“ The off season for the club has gone well ; we have kept the majority of players from last season and brought some good youth in from the U19s and a few from other clubs . Off the field , we have obtained a Ground Partnership with TJs Travel , a local coach firm and kept a few of our sponsors from last season as well as gaining a couple of new ones , so the off-season has gone very well from our side .
“ Our plans for the new campaign are to progress again as last year but we need to be realistic and not get carried away just yet . Off the field I want to see more through the gates and in the clubhouse , it ’ s also great seeing juniors walking around in our club colours through the town giving us an identity .
“ Youth at the club is very important to me as we want to see all of them turning out for the 1st team and U19s as they are the future of the club . We have over ten junior teams and they are very successful within their age groups and the coaches we have on board , I would say , are the best around and they have great ability to make the players better as footballers and people in the years to come .
“ We have had a few junior players progress through to the first team in recent years and it ’ s been very easy for them to adapt due to the quality of our junior coaches . They prepare the players to be able to slot into the U19s with ease , then 19s to open age we have in place a development officer who oversees the 19s and 1st team training so they
basically do the same training so it ’ s easy to step up .
“ We are definitely a community club . We encourage the community to get involved by volunteering to help on match days or during off season . We also have a local charity each year that we choose to raise funds for just to put something back into the community .
“ The biggest challenge in the next five years would be to get new committee members into the club . I hope the guys don ’ t mind me saying this but we have members in their 70s and 80s still volunteering at the club as committee members and in the coming years we are going to have to get young blood in to continue . We have already identified a few junior members as potential candidates so time will tell .
“ Our ambitions in the next five year from my point of view would be obviously League progression , you always as a player want to play as high a standard as you can do . As a club we should aim to play in the highest league we can so our aim is to climb the ladder and get as high as we can . We also want improve the ground ; we are going in the right direction with this but there is always room for improvement .”
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