Bradford Park Avenue least of which was ensuring the pitch was playable and the opposition don ’ t have a wasted journey .
No-one explained to me that I would need to liaise with local referees at 8.00AM on a freezing cold January day and that I would need to study the local weather forecasts for the preceding week to plan how to protect the pitch .
Our ground is Council-owned and it would be fair to say that as they received cut-backs in funding their maintenance of our pitch also suffered . Fortunately a few years ago the Club got a new benefactor , Gareth Roberts , who besides supporting the team financially has also been keen to ensure the pitch was brought up to standard and he brought in an outside contractor to oversee pitch maintenance .
It still requires a lot of volunteer support to get each game on however and it was very rewarding last year when , thanks to their efforts , for the first time ever , the Club went through a full season without having a home game postponed .”
Present
“ After a difficult start last season when the Team struggled to get away from the relegation zone in National League North , a new Manager , Mark Bower , started in late September 2016 and he brought in players with experience from the League above and slowly but surely we began to get some wins and draws and we pulled clear of the relegation battle with just a few games to go .
Mark has kept the nucleus of that team and made some other experienced signings during the last couple of months and so far we have had a good pre-season even beating our local League Club , Bradford City 3-0 . It was only a friendly and both teams changed players at half-time but they had their full first-team squad so it certainly brightened the mood of ‘ Avenue ’ supporters in the City .
From a football point of view , we will be looking to build on the momentum from the back end of last season and hope to start this season in the same manner . It is a tough League however with a number of Clubs going full-time and we have some high profile games scheduled in August 2017 which will demand good organisation off the field as well as on it .”
Youth
“ After years of just focussing on the first team , last season was the first for our newly formed Academy which was formed in partnership with a local school , Southfield Grange . We recruited sixteen year olds later than most Clubs that season and had to play those youngsters in an U19 Colleges League and an U19 Northern Alliance League .
They were playing against many established sides with older and physically stronger players but they showed great application and after losing most of their early matches in both Leagues the organisation and coaching skills of their Head Coach , Alex Meecham , began to bear fruit and they were rewarded with a few wins in both Leagues before the end of the season .
We have organisationally got smarter as a Club this season and our recruitment of new Academy players began much
Proud
to Support and Supply to Bradford Park Avenue
sooner and consequently we have had a wider number of trialists to choose from . The Academy players require not just footballing ability however but also a good attitude to their education and we won ’ t know our final Academy players for this season until their exam results in August and they can satisfy the academic requirements of our school partners .”
Integration
“ We have a Director of Football , Terry Dolan , who has great experience as a player and manager in the professional game and his main focus has been to improve the structure of the Club outside of the first team . We will soon have two years of our Academy intake and for season 2018 / 19 we plan to form an U21 side so that there is the opportunity for the current Academy players to step up a further level within the Club . In the meantime our Academy players from time-to-time will train with the firstteam squad and already this season three of last year ’ s Academy side have featured in a first team Pre-Season friendly . Our friends at Bradford City have also invited our Academy lads to one of their first-team sessions so that they
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