GRFC Football Bits

Invitation Cup - Saturday 14th Aug 2010

2010-08-11T12:31:00.003+01:00

Hi .

On Saturday 14th August, Grendon Rangers First Team and Reserves will play against Steeple Aston in the Invitation Cup. The matches are being played on the pitch behind Grendon Village Hall. The First Team kickoff at 1.00pm followed by the Reserves at about 3pm. Come and have an enjoyable family afternoon's entertainment. The teams would love you to come and support them.

There will be refreshments available.

This will culminate the pre-season warm-up games and provide a competitive introduction to the league matches which start next week.

See you there!

GRFC Multi-Sports Club cancelled until further notice

2010-08-10T12:38:00.002+01:00

Apologies to all but Steven Jackman has had to cancel all Multi-Sports Clubs until further notice. We'll issue more details as soon as possible.

Cheque payments have not yet been cashed; please let Steven know if you would like the cheque returned or if he can destroy it. If you would like the cheque returned, please confirm your mailing address.

Oving Villages Cup Final - Easter Monday

2010-03-30T11:30:00.002+01:00

Easter Monday will see the Grendon Men's Team contest the final of this venerable competition - one of the oldest cup competitions in the country. We took a lengthy break and on our first year back it is wonderful to be in the final. We'll face old rivals Steeple Claydon (after having just played them in the league on the preceding Saturday!). Come along and support - it will be quite an event and quite an atmosphere in this lovely setting.

An additional benefit will be a chance for the Grendon U11s to play a demonstration match against the Steeple U11s as an appetiser for the main match. It's a great chance for the team to get used to the 'big match' atmosphere as there should be a good crowd. The U11s match kicks off at 1.30pm and the Final itself at 3pm.

Entry Fee is £3 for adults and £1 for children.

Grendon into 2 Finals!

2010-03-04T15:09:00.003+00:00

Congratulations to the men's teams who have powered into 2 finals with good wins this week.

Firstly on Feb 27th the club beat Long Crendon 6-1 in the Oving Village Cup. This is one of England's oldest club competitions and has strict rules to ensure it remains a village competition - for instance you can only qualify to play through being born in your village, living there, or have played for the team for 3 consecutive seasons. We face perennial rivals Steeple Claydon in that final - on Easter Monday.

Secondly, the First Team last night (Wed 3rd March) reached the final of the Alan Holman Cup with a 4-2 semi final win over Syresham - goals from Adam Perna(2), Johnny Fulcher and Shaun Alderman. We will defend the Cup against - of course - either Steeple Claydon or Thornborough.

Congratulations and well done to Ian, Mick and everyone concerned with the senior football.

Grendon Festival - Saturday June 12th 2010!

2010-02-20T21:20:00.002+00:00

This summer Grendon Underwood will welcome the world for a whole day and night of fun. The morning will see the Grendon School Fete and as this winds down, the Grendon Festival will fire up.

There will be super live music from local bands on 2 massive stages; England v USA from the World Cup in South Africa on a huge video wall; a CAMRA real ale festival; fun Youth Football matches, and of course the Bob Fletcher Memorial Match. Here is the full lineup:

1.30 Grendon Rangers FC Youth Matches & Presentations
2.30 Bob Fletcher Memorial Match
4.00 Live Music - through to midnight
7.30 World Cup Football on 14 foot video wall
Real Ale Festival with more than 20 beers
Pig Roast
BBQ
All day bar

And all in aid of local charities!

Buy your tickets at www.GrendonFestival.co.uk and join the fun...!

Improve Communication with your team

2010-02-04T21:44:00.004+00:00

I found a wonderful website this week which should really cut down on the hassles of making sure everyone knows where the match is each week, what time we kick-off, whether training is on etc etc...

It is called www.teamer.net and promises free, automatic text messages and emails to all your players for each event. Create your team by adding a mobile phone or email address for each player, and then create an event - for example the next match. Choose your team, click the button, and then whoosh.. all your players are notified. They can reply with Y or N to indicate whether they are available or not and this reply is automatically to your admin page - meaning that you, as the manager, can easily see who is available that week. It sounds superb - as long as it remains free!

Take a look at the demo on http://www.teamer.net/pages/demo and see if it can help your team.

Simple training drill - improve passing

2010-01-28T14:21:00.003+00:00

This simple drill is aimed at U7s to U11s and I am indebted to the www.footy4kids.co.uk weekly emails for this tip. This can work for numbers of up to 5 or 6 kids, and is the sort of thing you can either lead, or split into 3 or 4 groups with a leader in each.

"Circle Circus"
Objective: To improve passing and receiving skills.
Age group: U7s to U11s.
Number of players: If you have more than five or six players, split your squad into two groups and play this game in two circles to avoid players standing in line too long.
Set up: Create a circular playing area about 15 yards across or use the centre circle. Your players line up facing the circle and about ten yards away from it.
How to play: You stand in the middle of the circle (on the centre spot) with one soccer ball. Pass the ball to the first player in line who then runs towards you with the ball. As he runs, he passes the ball back to you. The player then runs around the circle receiving and returning passes from you as he goes. Once the player has gone completely around the circle he either passes back to the coach and returns to the group of players or he brings the ball into the centre and takes your position.
Lee says: "Believe it or not, all of my under 8's managed to do this very well and they even started to turn it into their own competition with how many passes they could get in on their way round. We've found that this game helps with:
- passing ahead of the player
- collecting the ball on the run
- passing back to same player (1-2)
- moving after passing."

Using Robbie Savage's face for target practice...

2010-01-24T20:47:00.003+00:00

How many people have wanted to do this?! After Savage was hit in the face by a clearance whilst commentating on Aston Villa v West Ham, he offered to put himself in the way again to help his team-mates practice their shooting. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the goal, his team-mates lined up to test their skill. Disappointingly, only a couple came close... You can watch the full video here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/football_focus/8476110.stm

Maybe we should try this at U16 training this week. Should we vote or just save time and put the manager in the chair? Anyone else brave enough? Or any other ideas on how to improve accuracy??

Football-playing squirrel - we all need some of this!

2010-01-19T15:03:00.003+00:00

I love this video of a football-playing squirrel, filmed as part of Wayne Rooney's latest search for a new soccer star... Apparently this squirrel was found in the back-streets of Croxteth.. it is something in the water...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaWA1vKmSNQ&feature=related

Actually of course it is an advert for a new Coke sport drink, and there is another one of a penguin playing table-tennis : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YANe3o1dgG0

All good clean fun ;- ) Will be nice to get back to playing football this week. Hope it goes well for everyone...

Local lad Sam Baldock signs new contract at MK Dons

2010-01-13T16:46:00.003+00:00

I saw this today http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/milton_keynes_dons/8455244.stm and remembered that Sam is from Steeple Claydon and had been our guest of honour at last years youth presentation ceremony. I then checked Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Baldock) - I hadn't realised how highly he was rated - even making the 21-man squad for the 2009 U20 World Cup in Egypt!

If you want to know more about Sam, here is his official MK Dons profile : http://www.mkdons.com/page/ProfilesDetail/0,,10420~36062,00.html and also the thoughts of BBC pundit Steve Claridge writing in the Guardian last year : http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/mar/17/mk-dons-sam-baldock-scouting-report. I hope Sam remembers his friends at Grendon when super-stardom beckons, and best of luck for this years campaign with the Dons!

WDYFL (& OFA) postpones all fixtures for 16/17th Jan

2010-01-13T11:37:00.002+00:00

This is the full text from the WDYFL (and was sent even before this morning's snow!):

With the bad weather still here the WDYFL has decided to call off all the scheduled fixtures for 16th/17th January.

The weather forecast is not good - and even if there is no more snow and what is currently there starts to melt - many pitches will be unplayable and may possible be waterlogged.
--
Wayne Tilling
Witney & District Youth Football League
Press & Public Relations Officer
www.wdyfl.org
--
And the OFA have also just cancelled all U16 matches this weekend as well...:-(

Grendon Rangers makes it to YouTube!

2010-01-13T10:54:00.005+00:00

Thanks to Robin for pointing this out - footage of the first team's 2009 Alan Holman Cup semi-final v Great Horwood! There are actually 4 short videos on http://www.thebackofthenet.com/videos/ if you search for Grendon and 3 on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=grendon+rangers&search_type=&aq=f - all from the same match which Grendon won 4-2. Here is a sample - how to take a penalty!

No training this week? Watch these training videos instead!

2010-01-13T09:40:00.007+00:00

Waddesdon School have advised us that their all-weather pitch is out of action until the snow has cleared and the ice has thawed. That means that there will be no men's or youth training tonight (Wednesday 13th Jan), no U11/12 training on Thurs 14th, nor U16 training on Friday 15th. Obviously this is a big disappointment but no surprise I am sure. We'll let you know as soon as we can get back onto the pitch.

In the meantime, why not take a look at these master-class videos from Lucozade, showing how masters like Les Ferdinand, Martin Keown and Gary Speed each teach amateur teams some professional tips... I don't mean Ronaldo-style diving or Liverpool's zonal defending (!) but instead it is simple stuff - such as giving yourself a little more time on the ball through 'opposite motion' or how to defend one-on-ones.. It's all good stuff and it's great to see how simple some of this can be! I look forward to practicing some of these as soon as the weather improves! Here they are: http://www.lucozade.com/sport/football/raise-your-game/player-advice/default.aspx Keep warm...

Explaining the offside rule...

2010-01-05T15:56:00.004+00:00

Never thought I'd find a post using the words "Graham Poll" and "offside rule" entertaining but I must admit that this explanation from one of our most (in)famous referees is very clear and probably very useful: Graham Poll explains the offside rule. The interpretation of this rule has caused my team more grief and frustration than any other rule this season. This seems to be a result of insufficient understanding between referee/amateur linesmen/parents/players and so anything that reduces the confusion is good!

Graham's summary is that FIFA have updated the offside law to make it clearer...

- offside occurs, when, in the referee’s opinion, at the moment the ball is played, a player is either
(1) interfering with play (ie touching the ball), or
(2) interfering with an opponent (ie by obstructing an opponent or distracting an opponent through gesture or movement), or
(3) gaining an advantage by being in that position (ie by playing the ball if it rebounds to him off an opponent).

The trick lies in deciding which interpretation the referee will apply. For example if a player is standing in an offside position but makes little attempt to get to the ball, most referees will deem him NOT to be interfering with play and allow play to continue. However, surely there is an argument that by standing in an offside position and making ANY movement he is distracting the defending players and therefore interfering with an opponent? As always it comes down to the opinion of the referee and that will vary from game to game...

We all know that football is a game of opinions, but do we want opinions deciding the course of games? In the old days the rule was clear and far easier to apply. I suppose that by giving the advantage to the attacking team, it does make the game more exciting, but it still does not feel right to me. What do you think? Is there a better way to keep the excitement but make the rule simpler? All comments (& opinions!) welcome ;-)

Welcome...

2010-01-05T13:58:00.000+00:00

Hi All. Welcome to the new Grendon Rangers Football Blog. This will be an occasional column which will concentrate on events of interest to the footballing community around the local area (Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire etc) and perhaps wider afield.
We all know that football should NOT be a matter of life and death, but sometimes we forget that. We'll try and throw in as much light-hearted fun as we can, but also look at deadly serious subjects such as the much-maligned and often misunderstood offside rule. We'll start with this laugh-out-loud-funny compilation of classic footballing moments from 2009 http://soccerlens.com/the-funny-side-of-football-in-2009/38922/ - keep the sound turned off and enjoy the action! Back soon...