Club volunteers - a key ingredient for success
Boardman & Eccles Junior LC, based in North-West Manchester, have enjoyed another strong year of development across the girls and boys sections.
Like any club, this has been enabled by the support and hard work, on and off the field, by a group of volunteers – in particular Dave Griffiths, Rob McGowan & Patrick Buckley on the admin side; and Andy Fallone, Rick Hall & Matt Anderton (plus their three young coaches Dylan McGowan, Ethan Hatcher & Archie Brown) on the player development side. Alongside this, the commitment of the players and their parents, all working as a team in the re-building of the Boardman & Eccles Junior section.
The Lacrosse Foundation has been pleased to provide grant funding in two staged payments to enable the club to run curriculum & afterschool provision (led by club coach Dave Elwood), initially to Yr5 & Yr6 pupils at a number of primary schools, followed by Yr3 & Yr4 during this most recent school year. CPD sessions have also been run in targeted schools.
Having a club setting for the young children to go to, led to an increased number attending practice with over 30 girls regularly playing at the club – with this year, both the U-11 & U-13 teams competing in league lacrosse for the first time in Boardman’s history. Next season, the plan is to add an additional U-13 team, to enable more girls to experience competitive lacrosse.
As Dave Elwood told us:
“The U-13 girls showed excellent improvement through their first year at this level, only narrowly losing to a strong Stockport side in the Cup semi-final – having earlier in their season being well beaten against the same side. Seven of this Boardman team were selected to represent Lancashire, with five playing in the 1st team which won the Northern Counties Tournament. The girls have been outstanding all year, led by a strong coaching group including Phil Reader, Jim Bloomfield, Georgia White, & Matt Drake. A remarkable achievement for a section that only started 3 seasons ago, all supported by a strong volunteer/parent’s group”.
“On the boys’ side, our practice numbers have steadily grown, with around 15 to 20 U-12s regularly attending sessions, and a similar number in the ‘Pee-Wee U-8’ group. This enabled an U-10 team to compete throughout this season, in all the development tournaments organised by the NEMLA junior programme, as well as a number of individual games against other club sides. The young players, who are all new to the sport, have really enjoyed these tournaments and our next step is to progress into playing regular competitive lacrosse with an U-12 team next season. Three of the older Boardman boys have represented Lancashire, and are also on the England Academy pathway.”
The Boardman club hosts the annual Salford Pop-Lacrosse Tournament, and this year 16 teams competed for the trophy with a marked improvement in the standard of play across the schools. Our TLF funding has enabled coaching in more schools across a wider age range. A shout-out to Monton Green Primary, one of the B&E schools, who represented Salford at a very competitive Greater Manchester Pop Tournament, seeing them end as winners of the Plate competition.
And during May, the club hosted a development tournament for 14 schools – where between games the club’s coaches worked with groups of players and teachers on development of fundamental skills.
It is great to see the progress being made, and long may it continue with the ongoing commitment from volunteers, and the new lacrosse players helping to make it ‘their’ club.