Shetland Women's FC

Intercounty 2012

Where – Kirkwall

When – Saturday 15th/Sunday 16th September

Preparations are underway for the annual Intercounty, we’re hoping to have a full ‘A’ and ‘B’ squad traveling and we’ll be staying in the Orcades Hostel in Kirkwall.

This year we’ll have to raise our game somewhat if we want to get anything from our trip to Orkney, so we’ve started in plenty of time by having an informal kick about at Clickimin Kick-about area every Sunday at 6pm (£1 towards club funds please)  Outdoor training will commence on Tuesday 17th April 6pm at Clickimin Kick-about area (again £1 towards club funds please) and will run right up until the Intercounty.  These are open to any interested female players regardless of perceived ability, so please feel free to come along and have a go, if the Intercounty’s not for you then you’re still more than welcome to come along.

We are conscious of the fact that Orkney, to their credit, are training and playing regularly which has made them a greatly improved outfit compared with what we’ve been used to in the past.  We, on the other hand, have barely kicked a ball since since our last Scottish Cup action 3 years ago and last years ‘B’ team defeat should have given us the wake up call we needed to make us realise that the days of ‘turn up and win’ are long gone.

With this in mind we now realise that there needs to be fundamental changes to the local football before we can even think about County level.  We need to have some regular football being played, initial thoughts are to occasionally book a pitch and make two even teams from those that come along? but perhaps you have an idea/opinion on how to stimulate some interest?  If so please get in touch.  It needs to be much more incumbent on players to turn up for training/games as squads will be selected from those attending training/games and not on what you did 3 years ago!  We appreciate that work/family/education commitments will be an issue but where there’s a will there’s a way and the Intercounty is nearly 6 months away so the time is there.  Indications are that there is some strong interest from a core group of experienced players which is encouraging, there’s plans being discussed regarding fundraising towards getting a new strip and trying to attract a sponsor so there is hope for the future.

Derrick and John will be running regular training sessions every Tuesday evening, there’s the informal kick about on Sundays and we’ll be arranging games in the build up to the Intercounty so there’s ample chances to get some game time in.  Our feeling is that if attendances at training are consistently poor and/or we can’t get at least 22 players to turn up for some semi-regular games then we will not be sending a team to Orkney to contest the Intercounty and we really don’t want that to happen.

We’ve got the Gilbertson park games hall booked this Sunday (11th March) from 6 – 8pm for informal 5-a-sides, as always this is open to anyone so please feel free to come along, cost will be £2 – £3 depending on numbers.

The long awaited game verses the Coffin Dodgers is taking place on Sunday 4th December with a 3pm kick off at Clickimin North Park

This should be a good fun and all players are encouraged to make every effort to come along, even if you can only make a half.  Please be at Clickimin Changing rooms by 2:30pm so we’re not hanging around waiting on people turning up, could you also bring £2 please as we’ll share the cost of the pitch hire.  The weather will be fine, honest!

We are also going to have a committee meeting very soon in an effort to get things going again before the season starts.