Basford Preseason 2008

Injury scare for Oaksey- Richard Oakes picked up an a nasty looking ankle injury last Tuesday at training but the player has advised not as bad as it looks and Oakesy hopes to be fit in a couple of weeks.

John Manders who was lasted season signed as a duel signing has this season committed himself to United for the coming season. Manders a no nonsence forward with an eye for goal and adds real competition for front line starting places alongside Kev Walker, James Hendry and johny Bowers as and when needed.

The new 1st team kit for the campaign has now been ordered and the 1st team will be lining up in our favoured yellow and black. The kit is provided by sponsers inspirepac.

Don,t worry lads the blue will be actually black.

Additionally we have ordered the following polo shirts for the 08-09 season for 1st & 2nd team and these will be black and silver.

Tracksuits wise we will be going for a black Adidas or Nike tracksuit that is being sourced by Precision Training and further details to follow.Tracksuits should be part funded by our local and sponserer the Horse & Jockey.Below is what we are looking at

R.R.P £49.

The deal for the lads this campaign is get £15 worth of sponsers for the sponsered bike ride Aug 10th and in exchange you will get a polo top F.O.C plus a matchday warm up top.

iF YOU CAN GET US £40 WORTH OF SPONSERSHIP THEN YOU WILL GET the above plus a Basford tracksuit for the forthcoming season, this represents a very good offer and to purchase all the above would set you back £70. So if you can take the forms arround work places etc then you can make a real saving.

Ground taking shape

The pitch and training areas are beginning to show the benefits of the hard work put in by yours trully and chairman Nev Sheldon and happy to report the top returfing looks to be settling in nicely.If all goes well we expect to play our friendly scheduled for the 29th July v Unity on the main pitch.

Few photos:

Top Goalmouth returfed

More activity at the ground today with the top goalmouth finally returfed and this completes our extensive pre-season pitch improvements. Hopefully now the half moon is a thing of the past and we can see more goals at the top end this campaign!

Just like last year we will be holding our annual sponsered bike ride at Clumber Park followed by a Barbeque £5 per head on Sunday 10th August 2pm start. Last year this proved a great success with girlfriends and families attending and we raised over £1200 to the Club last year. This year same rules apply any player who can get us £30 worth of sponsors will get free of charge matchday T-Shirt and a Basford 2008 tracksuit. The sponsored ride and Barbeque is open to all Basford clubs so if you want to participate and have a share of the pot then I am quite happy with this. I will dish out sponsorship forms over the next two weeks so this will give you a good 4 weeks to look for your sponsors.

Club Sponsors

Pleased to advise that the following companies have pledged us sponsorship for the 2008-9 season

Inspirepac Ltd - Will be providing a new senior team kit and training tops for the season.

Horse & Jockey - Have pledged continued support for the new season.

Any players who can get individual sponsorship can have this offset against subs due for the new season, additionally Basford's 2 main teams will be having match-day programmes this campaign so again we have advertising space available for £50 per page.

 Newcastle trip proves a great success

Our club weekend to Newcastle proved a massive success with a very good representation from both 1st and 2nd team and a great time had by all with lots of beer consumed by all and lots of special moments to talk about, and lots best kept out of the news !!.  Highlights of the trip had to be the ability of Johny Bowers when drunk to sleep through absolutely everything. A great Saturday day time Trip to Whitley Bay with Ash Macca given a birthday present that should be remembered and Ben up for a laugh which proved a little more painful than probably imagined. Saturday night saw me get enticed to share a Manders and Besty special homemade alcohol beverage that was not the brightest thing i have ever done given i was mixing with some professional drinkers and left the rest of the night a slight blur.Saturday night in Newcastle proved a great night with it ending with Eddie Knaps ending on the wrong side of Bestys electric razor and losing some of his hair which he then choose to take the whole lot off. But all in all a great success and plans are already a foot to head off abroad for next preseasons trip. More photos in the news section.

Amendment to Preseason Training

Given that several lads will be away on holiday on or arround the time we commence preseason training we have decided that for the 1st and 2nd team we will Start on Saturday 28th June 11.30 am at Basford ground, and future sessions will be on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Please can i ask that all players who expect to feature in both squads make a real attempt to attend as competition for places in the 1st & 2nd teams this campaign is expected to be fierce with competition in all positions as we aim to build a squad capable of mixing with the best in the N.S.L this campaign. Any new players wanting to attend who we don,t know about either come down on the 2 dates in question or getting in touch with myself Andy or Rob.

Latest ground developments

As mentioned the main pitch and training pitch over the last weekend has had 8 massive sacks of grass seeds implanted just below the surface and slitted and now all we need is rain for the roots to bed in, but all in all a great success and we hope this will massively improve the surface over the coming season. Additionally the top goalmouth will be returfed on the 28th June and we expect the 1st team pitch to be officially ready for action at the start of August fo our lst two 1st team friendlies before the campaign commences.

New light weight Aluminium goalposts like that used in the Premiership have now been ordered and expected to be delivered in the next 4 weeks.Obviously the major benefit will be less effort to errect on match days and a by far more professional appearance.

Work starts on the Pavillion next week and we will be looking to do a significant repaint as well as installing security gates on all outward facing doors that will enhance the security on the pavillion.

And finally the hard standing arround the pitch area commences in earnest over the coming weeks, so hopefully all this work emphasis,s that Basford have a very ambitious growth plan over the coming years.

Squadwise we have targeted several highly rated interested players  to come to the club and we are hopefully of enhancing last seasons 1st team squad by a maximum of 4 players which we think added to last years squad is all we need with the continued emergence of several 2nd team players and key players likely to return from long term injuries.

Additionally delighted to report that we have been successful with phase 1 of our grant applications with the Football Foundation, this will allow us to replace the goalposts on our main 3 pitches and the 1st team pitch will utlise premiership style posts that will be light weight Aluminum and so be removeable on matchdays and have prefixed nets.Our 2nd phases facilities improvement grant is currently being reviewed by the foundation and we hope for an answer on this one shortly. The purpose of this grant is ground improvements such as a new secure Car Park and hard standing improvements arround the ground.The 3rd phase will involve floodlights.

Presentation evening

This proved a great success and out thanks to the Horse & Jockey in providing the venue and a great spread of food.

Trophies awarded on the evening

Managers Player Richard Oakes

Players Player Gary Willows

Clubman of the year - Richard Oakes and Nick Grayling

Club most improved player - Rusharn Bennett

Club Young player of the season - Tom Hickey

Outstanding contribution to Basford F.C - Martin Soley & Rob Palethorpe

1st team Top Goalscorer Kevin Walker

1st team Managers most M.O.M.s - Mark Dimech

1st team most Opposition M.O.M.s - Johny Bower

1st team Sportsman Ben Howarth

2nd team Managers Player - Brendon Shiggins

2nd team Players Player - Alex Clarke

2nd team top goalscorer - Don Loscalzo

2nd team sportsman - Kieran Edwards

3rd Team awards

Managers Player

Players Player

Top Goalscorer

Most consistent Player

Presentation night Photo,s

Oaksey collecting 1 of his 2 trophies on the night, excellent

campaign for the silky midfielder.

Hard tackling Gaz Willows well deserved for a great season,and

proved a great signing for us.

Kev Hitman Walker 21 goals this season and

certainly one of leagues premier strikers 

The reliable Nick Grayling collects his award.

Skipper Dimech collects his award, always consistent and one of

the leagues top players.

Paul Junior collects Johnny Bowers award - Bowsey had a tremendous

impact following his signing from Cotgrave.

Rusharn Bennett proving to be elusive for the camera

as he is on the pitch but a great season.

Bren Shiggs collects Managers Player from Rob,

A fine consistent season for Bren.

Don collects his award from Rob, 17 goals from midfield is a fine

strike rate.

Mich Gray presents his Managers award

Photos

Other News

Balfe on the mend, talented midfielder David Balfe who missed the entire season 2007-08 has finally had knee surgery in April which was deemed a success and so hopefully this will put behind his injury nightmare and see him back in a Basford Shirt before the end of the Year.

1st team photo 2007-08

Photo Line up

Back row Gaz Willows plus junior,Russ Best, Kevin Walker,Nick Grayling,Jon Bower,Ash MacPherson,John Manders, Rusharn Bennett,Chris Fisher, Chris Munroe 1st team Manager,Front row Ben Howarth,Richard Oakes,Adam Palmer,Paul Junior, Mark Dimech Capt,Danny Knapcyk,Tom Hickey

Missing from Photo Lee Carter,James Hendry

2nd team Photo to follow

Breaking News Andy Benner to Basford

Basford 1st team manager Chris Munroe is delighted to announce that
Ex Wollaton manager Andy Benner has been quickly snapped up after becoming available and will join ambitious Basford Utd as Joint 1st team manager for the new 2008/9 season. Working together both had a very succesful spell at Wollaton delivering 2 championships and a league cup success and had a very good working relationship. Andy was interviewed tonight by Soley, Rob and myself and all are very pleased to welcome him on board. Munroe is very hopeful that Andys influence will attract the 3 or 4 players that will help both our 1st and subsequently the 2nd team push for major honours next season.  

Picture Basford v Keyworth -Clash of the titans Mark Dimech keeps a close eye on Alex Woolwich- Thanks to Cloughy off the forum

 BASFORD UTD FC Club Website

Season 2008-09

This Year our teams will be in the following leagues

1st team N.S.L Senior Division

2nd team N.S.L Division One

3rd team N.A.A Division Two

Under 16,s Y.E.L

Recent acheivements

1st team 2006-07 NSL 3rd place

 Mark Dimech- Gary Willows & Nick Grayling selected for N.S.L Representative squad.

One of the oldest and best known clubs in the county,  Basford's history includes many Notts Alliance honours, FA Cup appearances during the forty's and fifty's and two Notts FA Senior Cup triumphs, their last final win coming in 1988 which included many great names including Wayne Lear, Billy Daft, and Paul Jepson to name a few.  The period from 1988 through to 2003 saw limited success however the appointment of Martin Soley as 1st team manager saw a revivial of the clubs fortunes and in 2005 both 1st team and reserves won respective league titles in the N.A.A, and the 1st team also secured the Notts Intermediate trophy .In 2006 Basford were accepted into the N.S.L and an excellent start saw the 1st team win 6 out of the 1st 7 games. This good showing was maintained throughout the season and the 1st team finished a very respectable 3rd place and had the honour of having club captain Mark Dimech,centre midfielder Richard Oakes & Centre forward Kevin Walker selected to the N.S.L. representative squad.The season 2007/8 saw the 1st team under the leadership of Chris Munroe and despite a slow start blighted by injuries and unavailabilites and a host of new signings eventually the team found form finishing the campaign very strong and providing a very good foundation for 2008/9.

For the 2008-9 campaign both N.S.L Basford teams will be looking to build on successful campaigns that saw the 1st team finish with 32 points out of the last 39 on offer and the Reserves who secured a cup final place only to lose on penalties to Wollaton reserves.The 1st team management team for the 2008-9 camapign sees  Chris Munroe  working alongside Andy Benner. Off the field the club has many ground improvements taking place at Greenwich Avenue with ultimately floodlights proposed.