A Successful Mark Worthington Junior Football Tournament This Weekend
This weekends Mark Worthington Junior Football Tournament organised by our Junior committee members, led by Martin Coyne, Angela Harley and Danny Seddon, aided by all their managers and coaches and supported by the Hyde United board and volunteers, was an amazing success.
The junior managers, coaches and members put in a lot of effort, work and time into organising the event over the last few weeks. This was the first junior tournament they have arranged and it won’t be the last, judging by the comments and feedback received.
When you consider the event was attended by close to 80 teams from U7 up to U12, over 800 children, 2000 parents/family members and teams from as far as the Midlands, over the 2 days, it was a massive success. We are sure Mark would have been very proud of everyone involved in pulling this off. Its the sort of event he himself would have been ready to throw all his effort into to make it the success it was.
The feedback has been amazing;
Dee Barber – AIM FC Coach;
This weekend AIM FC had not only had the pleasure of producing some amazing football but more importantly had the honour of playing it in memory of Hyde United FC very own CEO and the Director of the Academy Mark Worthington who passed away earlier this year. As a coach this weekends football wasn’t necessary about the results, but the reason we were there in the first place. To see so many clubs, teams, players, referees and coaches come together to support Hyde United FC with this enormous loss was just mind blowing. Standing together as one big football family makes me so proud to be a coach. Truly an honour. Well done to Hyde United FC for bringing us all together the way you did. It reminds us that there is so much more to football than the wins and losses. Well done to all the AIM FC family on partaking in this tournament. I’m sure Hyde Utd FC Mark Worthington would have been more proud than any of us there. Looking forward to us all coming together again next year.
Neil Spedding – One of our junior coaches;
Had a truly fantastic and humbling experience at the Hyde juniors tournament this weekend.
The lads and I did our bit to help…being at the ground both mornings for 7.30am (not a misprint)… me and the wee sidekick were on turnstiles, while Ben patrolled the side gate, and sold raffle tickets…both salesmen of the future.
It was late morning today, when I managed to actually see my first match… didn’t know the 2 under 7s teams initially…although as I watched, I realised one was called AIM.
The only reason it rang a bell, was because having seen the league standings, AIM were bottom having conceded 16 and scored 0, after 3 games.
As footballers, I’d love to say they were unlucky, they weren’t, they were poor…BUT…here’s the thing….
They were poor because I learned during the game, they’d never played before….in fact on Friday, they had their first ever training session…on how to kick a football…
And they entered a tournament against teams who’d been together a year or so.
I’d love to romanticise and tell you they had a famous win…no..they finished with played 6 scored 0, conceded 31….
How do I know this, because my boys and I were transfixed……
They had a manager who did nothing but encourage, support, cheer every time they kicked it….and never criticise once….
In fact, for the last game
The boys and i were in position before kick-off praying for a goal for them….it didn’t happen.
Were the kids upset?
Did they go off in a strop?
Did the manager go mad at them?
NO
They came towards the side at the end of their last match …the manager lined them up and she told them how amazing they were…and stood to the side to enable proud parents to take photos as the kids chanted “AIM AIM”….and we chanted along with them…
As I said…so humbling and incredible….
We cheered them off….
Those are just a couple of many comments, see more comments and photos on the Hyde United FC Juniors Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/hydeunitedjuniors/ , make sure you give them a follow to ensure you know about the next tournament.
Here is a video of the weekend by Viaduct Video Production
