The Junior section has continued to flourish this season in terms of numbers with 42 members but we have had quite a turn over of players from last season. Some have moved to play for Reading Rockets in the National League, some have moved away and some have stopped playing! I expect this will be a continuing problem.

The Junior committee have met on a regular basis and which has helped run the junior section efficiently and I would like to thank the committee for all their help. We will be losing the junior members of the committee, Mike Miller and Trist Emery, who will be going to university in the autumn. I wish them success with their future studies and thank them for their help throughout the season.

The reorganisation of the boys training sessions this season to include men with the senior boys has proved successful and with the return of some “veteran players” we have seen a big improvement in the playing standard in this age group.

Once again I have been fortunate in having an assistant coach, Chris Knapman, helping with the boys coaching. His input has been invaluable and I am hoping that Chris will be taking on one of the Junior teams in the future. All we will need then is someone to take on the third Junior team.

Once again we entered teams in the Bucks Central Venue League, at under 13, under 15 and under 17. From my point of view the league this year has not been very well organised, often running late and with matches scheduled on bank holidays and school holidays. As a consequence we struggled to put out teams and had to forfeit a number of games. I feel we need to look at a different competition for the boys, with one possibility being another central venue league in Bracknell, which is on a Friday evening. Hopefully this would mean more boys would be available to play as it won’t be in conflict with the other sports they play. We will have to see what everyone else thinks!

Our congratulations must go to Sam Jones and the Princes Risborough boys under 14 team, who won the national school title this year in Nottingham; most of the boys who play for the school team train (or have trained) in our Junior programme with us! I think this has proved that the club school link is working and is something we should pursue in the future.

We had 8 boys representing High Wycombe in the Bucks Youth Games on June 7th in Milton Keynes, at the under 12 age group. They are Harvey Palmer, Jack Britnell, Max Beglin-Rose, Will Knapman, Saif Jarral, Suleman Jarral, Eden To, and Ryan Dowie. The team competed really well and finished runners up to Milton Keynes.

Hopefully next season some of the senior boys will be playing in the Mens team and we can see some true progression from our coaching programme


Rod Cooke
Coach