Firstly, good luck to the manager and the first team with their fixture against Colchester this weekend from everyone at CTFC Academy.
The youth team have had another busy week. Having lost 4-0 on Saturday to Swindon in the league, they followed that up with a fantastic 2-1 win away to Cambridge United in the second round of the Youth Alliance Cup.
Two goals from George Lloyd and a fantastic performance from a very young Under-18s team meant that the long coach journey was worth it!
This means that they are now into the quarter-finals with the opponent to be confirmed shortly.
The team travel to play Plymouth today (Friday) in the league at Home Park (Plymouth's first team stadium) and they will be looking to continue their cup form in the league!
This weekend saw the first of several club led festivals that the foundation phase will be participating in. Cheltenham hosted the Under-12s, which saw Plymouth, Exeter, Yeovil, Swindon, Bristol Rovers and ourselves take part in a Champions’ League style festival where teams played each other in a home and away tie.
With aggregate scores and away goals to contend with, it provided a great opportunity for players to develop their understanding of how to manage the state of the game. Our Under-12s performed well with competitive games against Yeovil, Plymouth and Swindon.
It has been a slow start to the season for most of the age groups in the Youth Development Phase. The Under-13s and Under-14s had decent performances but were unlucky to lose to Bristol Rovers.
The Under-15s underperformed in their first match of the season against the same opponents. It has been a slightly disjointed pre-season with players and staff unavailable, mostly due to holidays and injuries, and we are looking slightly less prepared than the other academies we have played so far. But we are improving every week which is a good sign and we will ensure this continues and the results will follow.
The Under-16s travelled to Swindon this past weekend, after their thumping victory over Forest Green last week. In the end we lost what was a frustrating match for us. We conceded some very poor goals due to individual errors and spurned some good chances in front of goal. We seem to be in a pattern where we have one good performance every two weeks at the moment so let’s hope this continues this weekend when we travel the long journey down to Plymouth on Saturday morning.