January 2025 Club Update
- Ashley Thomas
- Nov 4, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 14
Hi All 🙂
Firstly, happy new year to everyone. I hope you are well rested and enjoying your children being back at school 😉
Thank you to everyone who completed their feedback before Christmas. As you know, the club are proud to have this open communication with it's members and strive to take on feedback provided. With that, please see below for what we have learnt, and what has been implemented.
👉 Before you continue reading, we want to make you aware of a small price increase that will take effect from 1st February until the end of the season. Our subscriptions will be increasing by £2.50 per month, which works out to about 25p per training session and match.
We’ve held off on raising prices for as long as possible, but after last year’s pricing, we were hit with a significant increase in pitch hire costs, which the club has absorbed up to this point. To ensure we can continue offering our service, a small adjustment is now necessary.
There’s nothing you need to do—this change will be automatically applied on 1st February 2025. If you receive a sibling discount, the same percentage discount will be applied to the new price.👈
REGULAR UPDATES ON TRAINING PLANS 📲⚽️
As part of his role as Head of Coaching at SZ United, Ashley Gumbrell plans the weekly training sessions and topics, and we want to keep you in the loop about what’s coming up. We understand that our coaching style may sometimes look different from traditional methods, which can lead to questions about what’s being delivered. That’s why we feel it’s important to share our approach with you.
While we’re not yet perfect, these principles guide our planning and delivery each week:
To give you a flavour of the detail in our session plans, please see below for our current weeks 🙂
To stay updated on our training plans, simply click the"Log In / Sign Up" button at the top of the page. You’ll receive notifications whenever a new update is posted, so you never miss out!
IMPROVED COACHING TEAM - The return of Valentino 🤩
As part of our ongoing commitment to improving our coaching delivery, we’re constantly evaluating ways to enhance our team based on your valuable feedback. I’m thrilled to announce that after a year away, Valentino is rejoining us as a Lead Coach!
Coach Aks will be stepping down from coaching the technical nights, and we want to extend our thanks to him for stepping in while we finalized our recruitment process.
For those of you who don’t know Valentino, he played a pivotal role in helping build our club into what it is today. With over 10 years of coaching experience, he holds a UEFA B license and is on track to complete his UEFA A license soon. With his return, we now have four UEFA B licensed coaches on our staff—an incredible milestone for the club!
NEW 9v9 & 11v11 GOALS ARE READY 🥅
We’re excited to announce that our new metal professional goals are now set up and fully operational at our home ground. This means fewer games will be played in the park for these age groups. While some matches will still take place in the park—particularly for our 9v9 and 11v11 teams when we have a lot of home fixtures on a particular day — the goal (no pun intended) is to maximize the use of the cricket club for most fixtures.
FOOTBALL CAMPS - Dates for your diary 🗓️
You asked for this and we are here to deliver! 74% of parents asked would like us to offer half term football camps to our players so that the players can sharpen their skills, and stay active! We know sometimes not enough notice is given so get your diaries ready and log the dates below:
February Half Term Camp
🗓️ Wednesday 19th-Friday 21st February
🏟️ Margaret Roper Catholic Primary School
📲 Book here: https://szunitedfc.classforkids.io/camp/13
CATANIA FC Easter Clinic
Saverio and the team from Italian Pro Club, Catania FC, will be joining us in April for a 3 days camp. They will also be visiting training and match days in February (more to be announced soon).
🗓️ Easter Holidays 3 days
🏟️ Margaret Roper Catholic Primary School
📲 Bookings go live next month
TEAM STRUCTURE AND PLAYER COMMITMENT FOR NEXT SEASON ⚽️
We’ve received valuable feedback from many of you about the need to better match player ability levels within our teams. While we’ve already made adjustments in our younger age groups, changes in player numbers—due to departures and new recruits—have impacted the older squads.
In addition, we’ve heard your concerns about the lack of commitment from some players, particularly regarding attendance at training and matches. We understand the challenges of balancing schedules, but we want to emphasize how critical consistent attendance is. Not only does it impact your child’s individual development, but it also affects the overall performance and progress of the team.
To address these concerns for the 2025-2026 season, we will be implementing the following guidelines:
Training and Match Attendance Tracking:
Coaches will now log attendance for Monday and Tuesday training sessions.
Ben and Affiq will track attendance for Wednesday and Thursday sessions
Managers will hold record of attendance for match days
Regular absences without communication will result in a review of your child’s place on the team for the following season.
Team Placement for the 2025-2026 Season:
Our coaches, management team, and managers will assess the level of each player and assign them to a draft squad.
For age groups with multiple teams, players will be placed in squads that match their current ability level (e.g., stronger teams, intermediate teams, or mixed-level teams).
We will notify you of your child’s placement by March 2025, giving you ample time to decide on rejoining for the next season.
While we aim to balance player development with friendships, we want to be transparent with you about these changes to manage expectations moving forward.
FINAL NOTE - Your Payments To The Club ❗️
As we approach the final stages of this season, I want to address an important issue regarding payment to the club. This year, we’ve faced significant challenges in receiving payments on time, often requiring considerable effort to follow up with parents—sometimes without any response. This creates a serious financial strain on the club, which affects our ability to pay staff, referees, venues, and contractors on schedule.
We understand that times can be tough, and we are sensitive to that. However, it’s essential that payments are made promptly to ensure we can continue operating smoothly. To help with this, we ask that payments are received on the 1st of each month. Here’s some important information to keep in mind:
Payments are automatically debited from your nominated debit/credit card on the 1st of each month (please note: this is not from your bank account).
If your card is expiring, we will notify you so you can update your details.
If you’re having trouble making a payment, please let us know. If payment fails on the 1st, we will make additional attempts on the 4th and 9th, giving you more time.
After this period, if we’re unable to resolve the issue (e.g., we are not able to make contact), your child’s spot on the team will be suspended until payment is made, and we will inform your manager.
We are here to assist, but we can only do so if we hear from you. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in helping us maintain the financial health of the club. We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.
Here is to a strong end to the season! Enjoy ☺️💙
Ashley Thomas
Club Chairman ⚽️
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