You may remember that this time last year, we were worried that two croquet lawns were soon to be constructed on the Junior pitch (the one between the Bowls area and Trinity Road) which we use for girls football and our under 11 team.

Well, it’s all changed since then and the current favoured location is to put the croquet on pitch 1, just up from the changing rooms, next to the hedge and the telephone mast. I should stress that this is not favoured by us!

As anyone who has been up to the rec on a busy Saturday morning will know, we use all the current space and we would rather the croquet goes somewhere else entirely. But we seem powerless to prevent it. The works are due to begin this summer.

Our traditional end of season summer event will take place on Saturday 16th June at the Hazlemere Recreation Ground (in and around the Ken Williams Memorial pavilion)

Tickets will be available from your child’s team manager. Advance purchase would help so we have a good idea of numbers for food etc.

Hope to see you there.

    The Chiltern Church Junior League Cup Finals took place on Saturday May 12th at Chalfont St Peter FC’s ground.

   There was mixed fortune for the three Holy Trinity teams who had made it though to Cup Final Day.

1.15pm  Lions Cup Final: Holy Trinity Hawks 2-6 St James Saints  

The Hawks were 30 seconds from an incredible 2-1 victory in the Lions Cup but were desperately unlucky to concede an equaliser.

They sadly never recovered their composure and lost the game 2-6 after extra time.

4.35pm Panthers Cup Final: Holy Trinity Lions 1-6 Harefield United Youth U14s

In the Panthers U14 League, HT Lions had finished well ahead of 4th placed Harefield and had the better of the head to heads, winning 5-1 at home and 5-3 away. But the Cup is a different matter!

In the Panthers Cup Final, the Lions struggled to contain Harefield’s fast and powerful front row and ran out 1-6 behind at full time.

6.20pm Jaguars Cup Final: Holy Trinity Thistle 5-2 Harefield United Youth U16s

In the Jaguars U16 League HT Thistle finished runners up with Harefield Youth back in 5th place. Thistle also had the better of the head to heads winning 4-3 at home and 3-2 away.

But the Jaguars Cup brought joy for Holy Trinity with an impressive 5-2 victory over Harefield. Thistle were always in control of this game and each time Harefield scored to close the gap, Thistle just took it up another notch to ease away again.

It caps a great season for Thistle who also clinched the runners-up spot in the league. 

 Thanks to all who went along to support our teams and to those on the League management team who were there all day to stage these finals. Quite a marathon effort!

Each year, as a Charter Standard Club, Holy Trinity Juniors FC has the chance to buy two tickets for the FA Cup Final. We offer these for sale to any of our team managers/coaches as a reward for their efforts throughout the season.

A draw takes place between all those who put their name forward and this year’s lucky winner is Chris Pullan, coach of HT Kestrels.

Congratulations Chris and enjoy your day out at the Cup Final next Saturday

We are now already thinking about next season – 2012-2013  – for certain reasons.

At the start of the current season last September, we found ourselves with more than an ideal number of children registered in some age groups and not enough in others. With a large number, it becomes difficult to give everyone  a game sometimes.
Some teams were unable to field a team until they had recruited more players.

To overcome that, we will be asking all existing players to sign up for next season on Saturdays 5th and 12th May

To help parents, there will be a one-off offer of a £5 subsidy towards the renewal HTJFC subscriptions, which are other unchanged, but only for anyone registering by the 19th May. This excludes the Under 6 Academy where the football is FREE and we just collect £10 towards your family membership of the Hazlemere Sports Association Pavilion

Then on Saturday 19th May, we will be open to receive new applications to fill up the gaps in certain squads on a first come first served basis.

So it will be important for all existing HTJFC players to book their places on time.

HTJFC form 2012-13    pdf version of the HTJFC registration form

HTJFC form 2012-13   Word version of the HTJFC registration form

The Chiltern Church League registration form will be dealt with nearer to the start of next season

February was a quiet month because of half term but the Knights are February’s best performing team so our congratulations go to Geoff Hutchinson and Sanj Sharma.

The Knights’ 5-0 win away at Blackstone beat their previous best score (5-1) also against Blackstone and takes them to five wins so far this season.

Keep up the good work boys!

England women’s coach Hope Powell (pictured left) is campaigning for girls to be allowed to play the game with boys beyond the age of 13 in this country.

Writing in ”The Times’ on Monday, its Deputy Football Correspondent Matt Dickinson highlights this latest campaign to offer girls here the same rights as their European counterparts.

He reminds us that “the age at which mixed football is allowed in England was raised from 11 to 13 last year after a three year study, including research from Brunel University and in the wake of discussions within the FA that took more than a year. 

However in Scotland, mixed football is allowed up to 15, in Germany until they are 17, up to 19 in the Netherlands and there is no restriction in Norway and Sweden.”

HTJFC ,which has until recently run all-girl teams up to under 16′s and continues to offer mixed football to under 10s, will no doubt monitor this situation with interest but of course be guided by the Chiltern Church League’s rules and those of the Berks and Bucks FA.

January’s Manager of the Month trophy was awarded at the recent HT Managers Meeting.

The deserved winner was Mark Smith (centre of picture) for steering the Holy Trinity Troopers to their first win of the season, a 4-0 victory over St James Swifts that lifts the mighty Troopers off the bottom of the Cougars league.

It is a fantastic reward for Mark and the Troopers lads who have had to contend with low squad numbers all season.  

Let’s hope the Troopers can march on, further up the table!

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Here is Mark’s match report on that award winning victory:

HT Troopers chalk up their first win of 2012!
On Saturday 28 January 2012, HT Troopers ran out 4-0 winners over St James Swifts in a bit of a thriller to chalk up their first win of the season!  In a much improved start to the match, the Troopers were caught offside numerous times.  This was a clear indication that the boys were attacking well and that they were playing with much more confidence than the previous week against KCA. 

It wasn’t a one-sided match though….far from it!  The Swifts, playing slightly downhill and with the wind behind hit the post twice, nearly benefited from a freak own goal that skimmed the top of a post and had two goals disallowed for off-side – as well as numerous chances which were saved by the excellent Sam Wainman.  Somehow, the first half finished 0-0! 

The second half saw the Troopers get a proper grip on the match – making the wind and slope advantage count and seeing several chances either slide wide of the posts or gathered by the Swifts ‘keeper.  Eventually, in a fabulous 20 minutes for the Troopers, we saw goals from Sam Woolldridge, Rhys Bailes, James Lewis and Darius Adl – with two being set up by Tom Roy and the others set up by James Smith.  With the Swifts flagging, the Troopers were looking for more goals towards the end but just couldn’t find the right shot to beat the Swifts ‘keeper. Ally came very close with yet another excellent cross that, with a touch from any player, would have crossed the line.

Overall, it was a very good team performance with all the boys working hard and thoroughly deserving the win.  I had given each player a couple of performance targets before the game – and pretty much all of the boys achieved or exceeded their targets (although thinking back, I didn’t set anyone the target of scoring a goal, which was a bit remiss of me!).  Man of the Match was very, very difficult this week with so many boys playing their best football of the season.  The whole of the Troopers defence (Sam Wainman in goal, Carl, Charlie, James Smith and Jordan – and with help from Tom and Sam C in the second half) worked really hard in the first half and their efforts were epitomised by Charlie who had the best game of his Troopers’ career so far – making really good tackles, showing a cool head when on the ball and tracking straight back on the rare occasions he was beaten by a Swifts player.  So the Man of the Match award went to Charlie – on behalf of the whole defence but also for his excellent individual performance.  Well done Charlie!

In the Chiltern Church Junior Football League, rules have changed to try and eliminate the effect of huge scores, which can have a bad impact on defeated sides.

Therefore if there is a tie on points for any league position, mainly those that impact league titles or medal winning positions, then order will be decided on the results in their head to head games. If these still fail to produce a clear winner, then a play off game will be necessary.

Over Christmas and the turn of the year, one of our HT team coaches Benedict Mwendwa visited Kenya with his family.

Now that many of our teams have had new kit this season, we had some spares of the red/blue reversible football shirts and gave these to Benedict to take out with him.

Two sets of shirts were given to the school football team at Kyangala Secondary School – located in a rural village in Machakos, Kenya – who were the recipients of the football kit.  Click on any of these small pictures to enlarge them.

They are grateful for the kit which the team really needed. You can find out more about the school by visiting http://www.kyangalaschool.ac.ke/

Do notice the quality of school pitches that they play on! Maybe Hazlemere Rec is not so bad after all!

Kyangala is a very needy area and Benedict has set up a charity which is supporting the village with water, health and education projects. You can learn more about our work by visiting http://www.kyangala-trust.org.uk/