What a fantastic season, don’t you agree? It has been hard work but very satisfying as the Junior Players and Coaches have grown in numbers and our squads start playing a much better standard of rugby, in proper competitions. We are not winning YET but we will. Our Mini/Midi squads have been honoured Two Festivals, the County Cups and 17 match weekends.

This season has not been without it’s trials and tribulations. The second half would be a tester for any club with all our fixtures played away since Christmas.

Also:

Our U15’s were in total dis-array as all 3 coaches decided to retire just before season started. BUT they were rescued by three very experienced coaches in Paul Bisgrove, Ray Lewis and Carl Radford. They took up the challenge, by getting the lads back together, training hard and enabling us to replace New Milton in the Hants U16’s league who incidentally had cried off, as they are a club that is scared to loose. The coaching squad have done a fantastic job.

Our U14’s suffered too at the start of the season when their full time coach left us for Totts but Paul Truman managed to struggle on for a while until help came forward from Bob Conway and Del Ricketts.

Added to this chaos you had a new Junior Chairman, in myself, and Lucy Pullin became our new Treasurer and Kelly Dean became our new Fixture Secretary. So as you can see we had some fairly major changes before the season started. Only Lesley Brooks remained to steady the ship from one season to the next.

Over the last four years, until this season, Fawley RFC was pretty much divided into two sections, Juniors and Seniors. This season we have all been working hard to make Fawley ONE club. In my opinion our season can definitely be summed up as a ‘success’.

The Coaches and Players have achieved more than I had hoped for, I will leave the squad coaches to sum up their own season. Added to what the Juniors have achieved, our coaches have a competitive Vets team to play in and support. Next season there are ambitions of entering the vets league. The Vets team is skippered by our U9’s Coaching Assistant and occasional ‘first teamer’, Mike Conway.

We also have a First Team to watch and support. Unfortunately they were demoted to Hants Div 3 but that gives us another go at rebuilding and I am sure that we will bounce back. Our New Club Captain for the coming season is Brian Grist, an ex-Fawley Junior Chairman. At the end of the day this is what the Junior Section is here for, to produce good Rugby players that will want to play for Fawley RFC Senior sides in years to come.

Looking to next season we have a stable committee and stable coaching setup which bodes really well for Fawley RFC. The result of this is that the schools in the area have confidence in our coaches, players, and parents. Next season we have squads at U7, U8 (Mini Tag) U9, U10 (Mini Contact) U12 (Midi Contact) then U13, U15 and U17 (Junior).

Our local Schools have been assisted by most of our coaches, throughout the season, during the school week. Our CRC, Andy Headley has worked hard within school training sessions and is building relationships that have then proved to build confidence in our club, Fawley, after he has recommended us.

The key, is that Fawley is providing competitive Rugby at most age groups, in this part of the Forest. So, in my opinion, that, is the real measure of our success.

A huge benefit to Fawley RFC is that when the ‘Juniors’ attend all three Mini/Midi Hants tournaments and play all around Hampshire on Sunday Mornings we are putting Fawley RFC back on the ‘bigger picture’ Rugby Map, incidentally, where the likes of Southampton RFC and Millbrook RFC don’t even exist.

The Taggers at U7 and U8 are now well supported with players and coaches and this is the critical area for us to concentrate on. We have good development support from the Hants RFU in Gavin Williams and excellent support from our Community Rugby Coach Andy Headley. We also get some good support from Totts and New Milton too, believe it or not, when it comes to organisation. A sort of know thy enemy situation.

As far as coaching development is concerned, at the start of the season we had 11 Coaches and assistants trained in Rugby First Aid and during the season we also had a total of 9 coaches attend various Coaching courses at Tag, L1 and Game Sense.

So you can see it has been a very busy and successful season –
Particular thanks goes to Lucy Pullen (Junior Treasurer) [FLOWERS, WINE, Certificate] and Carl Radford [Wine] who have done their level best to work with what appears to be an unfair and complex accounting system financially we are the strongest we have ever been. Lucy Pullin has worked extremely hard to achieve this for us, collecting subs right through-out the season making sure we all pay. Yes that is ALL of us, we Committee Members and Coaches pay for our Rugby Players too, even though we work about five hours a week for the club!

Special thanks also goes to Lesley Brooks (Junior Secretary) [Flowers, Wine, Cert], Kelly Dean (Junior Fixture Secretary) [FLOWERS, Cert + Wine].

[Wine and Cert] Dave Owen, Sid Baldwin, Paul Bisgrove, Mike Conway, Martyn Thomas - these coaches and seasoned (polite) Rugby players have been my main source of help through-out this season and as it happens I have played proper rugby with most of them too, although the proper rugby was quite a few years ago.

Then I would like to thank [Wine] Sharon Craddock, Paul Hogben, Ian Craddock, Mark Hannam, Stuart Benfield, Del Ricketts, Bob Conway, Eddy Herman, Ray Lewis, Gareth Friend.

Julie Bisgrove, Ray Lewis and Steve Leggate for their support

Thanks to all our Sponsors – Exxon £1750, Chris Hoar Tree Surgeons £500 and Bradnalls £500, Dibden Allotment £2000.

Thanks everyone, now if you could take a seat we will progress the Election of Officers.