As we reach the Christmas period I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on the season so far and to wish all our players, managers, parents, fantastic sponsors and supporters a happy and healthy Christmas break.

I genuinely believe we have made good progress over the last 10 months and although off the field it has been hard work trying to stabilize the club and put plans in place for the next 3 to 5 years we are making getting there. It was never going to be easy but with new sponsors, a restructure of our teams there is much to be optimistic about as we go into 2020.

Our fantastic junior teams at U10’s and U13’s have had good starts to their campaigns and it was great to welcome Ade Barnard and his team to the club and also brilliant news that Jason Watkin and his U13s stayed with us in the summer. We were also delighted that we could welcome AFC Hallamshire to join us as a feeder club as U16 level and that we could add an U17s under Carl Pilkington. Both teams and sets of players have been a pleasure to be around and I know that they will be giving everything they have for the club in 2020.

I know it has been frustrating for our Ladies team run by Gavin Felton with the amount of postponements that we have faced, but despite being a few games behind other teams they are well in the hunt for a promotion push in the second half of the season and I know they will be pushing to get the job done.

I was really pleased to welcome Paul Jackson back to the club in the summer and since he returned his young U19s team have been fantastic, sitting joint top of their league at Christmas. The team is still very young and we have a good few years to look forward to as we see them develop further.

In the summer we made a big decision to change our re-structure and disband our reserve team and implement an U21’s squad managed by Jimmy Whitehead and supported by Ryan Smith and Joe Bedford. I firmly believe it was the right decision. The team sit 3rd in the league table and have been superb so far, and again as a set of predominantly young players will only get better. We have started to see players get recognised for 1st team duty which was the clubs objective at the start of the season.

And that leaves our 1st team under Lee Morris. Firstly it was great to secure Lee and his assistant David Taylor again during the summer, both are highly regarded and it was great news that they agreed to stay with the club. Last season was our best season for nearly 20 years and re-established the club as a team that weren’t league whipping boys and teams now give us due respect. Our current league position doesn’t tell the true story, we have played much better than the results would indicate but bad luck and injuries have made it hard so far. But with a Sheffield Senior Cup Quarter Final to look forward to in January against AFC Emley and plenty of games and points to play for in 2020 we have keep believing and the points we deserve will come.

With our attendances up by 40% on last season, more sponsors, more teams and increase in social media followers we have plenty to be positive about. We still have plenty of work to do and I want to thank all the clubs volunteers and board members that have helped during 2019.

Finally we are all football supporters and we “dare to dream”. It would be great to see at least one of our teams winning some silverware by the end of the season. It is possible.

Keep supporting the club and its teams, we can’t do it without you. Have a great Christmas and thank you for your support.

Mark Booth
Worsbrough Bridge AFC Chairman