Lea Sports PSG Football Club PIRTON * SHILLINGTON * GRAVENHURST Page 1 Lea Sports PSG—A Charter Standard Development Club Affiliation to Bedfordshire Complete Vol. 4, No. 1, August 2009 I am pleased to be able to tell you all that our application to become a Develop- ment Club has been approved by the FA. This is a prestigious award for the Club and a fitting reward for the hard work put in by the Committee. It will be a major boost to our fundraising and recruitment in the future. After a dozen years of affiliation to the Hertfordshire FA, the Club has returned this season to an affiliation to Bedfordshire, its original home. The reasons have been outlined before—we play in three Bedfordshire leagues, have a majority of Bedfordshire-based players and committee members, etc, but the two main benefits will be that County Cup travels will be much closer to home—no more treks to Enfield and Bishops Stortford in the middle of December; and secondly, we have a much closer working relationship with the officials at County Headquarters. We have al- ready been in contact with County Development Officer James Slack, who has visited Pirton and helped us with our application for Development Club status, and with Anika Leslie-Walker, who is helping us in our ef- forts to establish girls’ football. Insurance Cover Now in Place One other consequence of our Bedfordshire affiliation is the provision of manda- tory insurance cover for all our players, through Northamptonshire-based com- pany Sportsguard. Most injuries which might be sustained on a football pitch, in- cluding broken bones (legs, hands, wrists, collarbone, cheekbone, etc), damage to eyesight, hospital confinement, dental expenses, etc are covered. All players who have completed a Club Registration Form and paid their Annual Subscription are covered. If you have to make a claim, contact me for full details, but keep cop- ies of all sick notes, wage slips and any other documentation relating to the injury. Steve Smith gets loads of money from some posh bloke... It’s Time to Make a Stand... Following a presentation to the South- ern Rural Committee of the North Herts. District Council, the Club has been awarded a grant of £1,000 towards re- placing the seating in the stand. This is in addition to the £250 pledged by Pirton Parish Council and £300 received from District Councillor Claire Strong. ALL THE RESULTS AND FIXTURES AT: www.lspsg.co.uk WEEKLY RESULTS AT: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p6R-zcdrBhhlwk0bN1GwAaQ&hl=en (You need to sign up for a Google account if you don’t have one already. Google accounts are free—just enter your e-mail address and a password). Lea Sports PSG Football Club PIRTON * SHILLINGTON * GRAVENHURST Page 2 Farewell to Andy Shiers Club veterans gathered at the Rec on July 26th to play a match to say farewell to Andy Shiers, who moves to New Zealand shortly. A mixture of old and young players took part in a friendly match (apart from the odd tackle by Rick or Bobby) which ended 6-5 to the Reds. Highlights were a rare headed goal by Chairman Greg Whelan, (who later proved that if you are well over six foot and playing in goal you can still be chipped) and a stunning volley from Steve Williams to round off proceedings. Someone asked me how many appearances the players had between them, and of course I love a challenge: former Chairman Keith Lee, Archie Conway, Rick Vipers and Bobby McGrath between them have 2,178 games under their belt; Andy Shiers himself has 416 and other members of ‘The 200 Club’ included Richard Knock (275), Al Palmer (292), Greg Whelan (208), Steve Baggett (256), Paul Gathern (439), Jamie Richards (284), Steve Goldsmith (230), Chris Gathern (228) and Steve Bingham (209). So far, that makes: 5,015. Then you have: Ben Alderton (100), Rich Masters (10), Mark Attwell (77), Scott Ayres (68), Jack Baggett (162), Ash Cooper (81), Laurence Freed (50), Mathew Hill (151), Mark Kempton (152), Barry Leek (66), Nigel Leek (119), Chris Littlejohn (23), Paul Maclennan (120), Pat McAneney (44), Mav Fuller (22), Ben Thomson (156), Ed Thom- son (182), Steve Williams (136), Scott Morgan (87), Michael Hughes (32), Richie Bevan (31) and me (178). Apologies to anyone I missed. Grand total: 8,462 Good job Gav Bidgood (241), Phil Thompson (612), Trev Taylor (351), Trev England (150) and Closey (261) didn’t make it, otherwise we’d have had over 10,000 games be- tween us…. It’s all Kicking-Off... Our teams have been in pre-season action already: the Under 10s have reached the semi-finals of two tournaments, whilst in the Shefford Tournament the Under 13s under Phil Toyer fought their way through to the Final, where they lost 1-0 to a strong Crawley Green side. Well done to both! Comments, Suggestions, Complaints, Articles, Photos, etc….. Send them to me at: [email protected] Lea Sports PSG Football Club PIRTON * SHILLINGTON * GRAVENHURST Page 1 Peguform Icknield Take the Premier Cup Lea Sports PSG Lose on Goal Difference Vol. 4, No. 2, September 2009 The traditional pre-season tournament—the Premier Cup, sponsored by Form IT Solutions—was won by Peguform Icknield by the closest of margins. Of the four teams taking part, three beat each other to finish on four points, so the tourna- ment was decided on goal difference. At half-time in the final round of matches things were looking good: Lea Sports’ closest rivals Brache Green Man were los- ing 2-1 to Woodstock, whilst the game between Lea and Peguform was locked at 0-0 (Peguform having had a goal disallowed for offside). Although Brache equalised and then went ahead in the second half, it didn’t seem to matter as Lea took a two-goal lead with strikes from Ollie Palmer. How- ever, for the second week running the home side failed to hang on to a 2-0 ad- vantage and Peguform snatched an all-important goal back, which gave them the trophy, despite the 2-1 defeat. (Full Results on the website at www.lspsg.co.uk) P. W. D. L. F. A. Pts. GD Peguform Icknield 3 2 0 1 5 3 6 +2 Brache Green Man 3 2 0 1 10 9 6 +1 Lea Sports PSG 3 2 0 1 8 7 6 +1 Woodstock Wnds. 3 0 0 3 2 6 0 -4 Youth Tournament a Great Success On August 29th, the Under Nines and Under Tens held their inaugural Tourna- ment at the Recreation Ground in Pirton. Each age group had invited three teams along for a tournament which ran from 10.30 until mid-afternoon. Burgers, hot-dogs and lots of sweets and cold drinks were on sale as the players toiled through a warm Saturday morning. In the end, the Honours in the Under Nine section were taken by Toddington Rov- ers, with the home side a close second; whereas in the Under Ten Section Bed- ford Town were victorious in the final vs. Shillington. Almost £200 was raised for Club funds and the bar in the Sports & Social Club also did good business throughout the day. Everyone agreed the event had been played in a great spirit and was a success. Congratulations must go to the management teams of both age groups for all their hard work in making the tournament happen. We all hope that the Tournament will become a regular annual feature on the fixture calendar and that we can ex- pand it to include another age group next year. NEW SEASON’S FIXTURES NOW AVAILABLE—Go to the Club’s website at www.lspsg.co.uk or the Football Mitoo site for Bedfordshire. ALL THE RESULTS AND FIXTURES AT: www.lspsg.co.uk WEEKLY RESULTS AT: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p6R-zcdrBhhlwk0bN1GwAaQ&hl=en (You need to sign up for a Google account if you don’t have one already. Google accounts are free—just enter your e-mail address and a password). Lea Sports PSG Football Club PIRTON * SHILLINGTON * GRAVENHURST Page 2 Website Additions More historical information about the Club has been added to the website. On the Home Page is a new button, labelled ‘Overall Performance’. This page shows the complete playing record of the Club, team by team. The left-hand menu then allows you to look at results season by season in each of the decades shown. For example, by clicking on ‘The 1990’s’ you will see: Mini-Soccer details are also included—see ‘The 2000s’ page. Below each season Cup- Final appearances are also noted—together with a link to the ‘Cup-Finals’ page. More History Too... From the home page, click on the HISTORY button and you will see three new sub-headings: The GOALSCORERS button will take you to a page with full de- tails of the Club scorers and Golden Boot winners; CLUB OFFICERS will list all those who have held official posts in the Club since 1973; and CLUB AWARDS will list all those who have won Clubman, Players’ Player, Manager’s Player, Supporters’ Player, etc, etc since records began. THE GOLDEN BOOT Other Friendly Results August 23rd First XI vs. Kent’s Athletic 3-1 Matches to come: 1st September Under 13s vs. AFC Dunstable 2nd September Under 15s vs. Shefford Saints 6th September Flitwick Tournament Comments, Suggestions, Complaints, Articles, Photos, etc….. Send them to me at: [email protected] Lea Sports PSG Football Club PIRTON * SHILLINGTON * GRAVENHURST Page 1 Mixed Fortunes at Flitwick Holders Cannot Retain their Trophy Vol.