Well done to the coaches, players and families of the NKU 2001 teams who hosted a “fun”raiser morning at the Firhill Complex on Saturday.

Lots of fun was had in Parents Vs Players games, penalty shoot outs and crossbar challenges together with raffles and other activities.

Its a great way to bring everyone together and raise money at the same time.

As most people are aware a huge amout of our club focus is about providing the opportunity for as many people as possible. One of the ways people are encouraged to play is if joining a club is affordable.

It was interesting to hear the new SFA Perfomance Director talking at the weekend about how football is becoming a middle class sport due to high weekly training costs. As a club we have pretty successfully managed to subsidise weekly fees by continual fundraising, mainly through our club lottery.

High sales of the lottery mean lower weekly costs going forward allowing more people to play. So with the current jackpot at over £500 we had another good week of sales which helps to pay for expensive facility hire etc.

As a club we need to continue with this focus as this after all is our very reason for existing!

Tonights session at Springburn for the 97s and 1st team is off due to the snow!
Saturdays details will be texted out!

I am working in Toryglen Indoor Football Centre today as I always do on a Tuesday and Wednesday and the place is finally getting the kind of clean that it should be getting regularly.

 Curious sort that I am I asked why to be told that there is an Old Firm legends match taking place in here on Saturday.

This Saturday? I asked. The same Saturday as there is a major cup semi-final across the road at Hampden? Yes was the answer.

This Saturday? I asked again. At the same time as Rangers have a league game at Ibrox? Yes once again was the answer.

Maybe its just me, but does anyone else out there think that someone hasn’t thought this through!!!

GOON.  Tis the name of a film about an ice hockey enforcer. Apparently, ice hockey sides have one player who is picked solely on his ability to rough up opponents. In Scotland we have a sport where 11 players are picked specifically to assault opponents. It is called amateur football. The scenes in Goon are gory and bristle with uninhibited violence. However, compared to amateur football in the late 1970s, they resemble nothing so much as a rumble in the creche after two toddlers have a disagreement in the soft play area. Seventies amateur football is to ice hockey what ultimate fighting is to advanced embroidery. Indeed, the only stitching conducted in the late, benighted seventies was to the victims of a routine clash on a piece of wasteland deep in some forgotten village. My view, and it is the result of experience that laughs at the sheer inadequacy of the word painful, is that in the next century archaeological teams will be conducting a dig in a Stirlingshire plot only to find extensive human remains. “Must have been the site of a dreadful battle,” they will muse. They will be right, though these conflicts went under the moniker of “league match” or, more dreadfully, “cup tie”. My hope is that they will find a piece of me. Once, on a rain sodden afternoon, I mused somewhat ruefully on the quality of the soup I was sipping. Regaining full consciousness, I discovered I was slowly drowning in a fetid puddle just inside a penalty box. I felt light-headed, possibly because my head was indeed lighter. By the precise weight of two front teeth. My crime had been to reprise a quick run across goal at one of our corner kicks. The strategy had earlier brought a goal. This time it brought an elbow in the gob. My team-mates were unsympathetic. They, of course, subjected my assailant to an afternoon of such violence that grown men wept at the side of the park and mothers grabbed children in the playpark and led their traumatised offspring home. But my mates believed “I should have been looking out for myself”. This, of course, was not a matter of vigilance. It was a euphemism for the assertion that I should have taken the centre-half’s elbow and manipulated it in such a way that he sooked on it for the rest of his life. They were a tough mob. Once I had to intervene in a fantastically bitter fight on the park. It was between two team-mates. They were brothers. At all other times, tackles were so violent that the victims had to be identified using dental records. We had a left-back so wilfully erratic in his play that he once left four players on the ground in an orgy of slide tackling. My mate turned to me and surveyed the bodies lying prostrate and eerily still. “All we need to do now is find the black box,” he said. These scenes come to mind – despite the best efforts of John, the column’s resident psychiatrist – on a regular basis, but particularly when the subject of tackling is raised in the modern game. Once senior footballers could launch tackles of a speed and power that one believed they should be accompanied by a Nasa-style countdown. The general rule was that defenders could boot forwards when standing behind them, at the side of them or in front of them. The odd pernickety ref would insist that the ball was in play at the time but the old-school official had no such scruples. There was also the accepted form that the defender was allowed “one” before any action could be taken. This is akin to clearing John Wilkes Booth because he only shot a single President of the United States. Now the outcry is about the prissy attitude to two-footed lunges, scissor movements of the legs when assaulting a rival and generally booting someone indiscriminately. A succession of managers line up to say that this aversion to the “physical side” of the game did not happen in their day. They are almost certainly right in this proposition but they are wrong in most everything else. Firstly, most do not know rules. Secondly, the game must be played within those rules that have been shaped to protect players. Thirdly, the game at the highest level has become more entertaining because great players can perform without a persistent, justifiable fear of imminent amputation. And I am all for that. The art of tackling is dead, wail the old timers. And so is the feeling where my front teeth should be.

2 weeks of football in a row then the rain strikes again!

So the 1st team played their first league game since the start of November yesterday on a surprisingly good surface at John Paul pitches. The team has been improving steadily over the season and at times yesterday the standard of play, and in particular the passing, was very good. However, the opponents Myre Athletic were too strong on the day and ran out winners.

That said, its my opinion that Myre will win every game they play in the 3rd division this season, simply because they have players who are too high a standard for this division. This is the same club we beat comfortably last season but definitely not the same team of players. I am not sure how they have managed to recruit so successfully or why players have been motivated to drop down the divisions to play for this team, but it has certainly worked well for them.

We, in my opinion, played really well yesterday and scored a couple of good goals. We never looked like winning the game, but we competed all the way through, and sometimes, when you are playing against high calibre opposition, that is all you can ask for!

Due the the recent success we have had in recruiting volunteer coaches we now have some extra capacity for new players in our youth teams.

Our 5 new coaches are all attending SFA Coach Education courses in January and have been volunteering at weekly coaching sessions.

So as well as creating opportunities to coach, this means that we have new opportunities for players born in 2002, 2003 and 2000.

So if you know of any young people in these age groups who would like to play football get in touch with the club.

Email info@ngfdg.co.uk or come along to a coaching session and speak to the coaches.

Well a strange think occured on Saturday! Not one but two football matches took place! We were beginning to forget what it was like to go out and play a competitive game on a Saturday.

The 97s had a home game at Blairdardie, which was more than unusual given that it is normally one of the first pitches to fall to the weather. Unfortunately the young boys lost, but I am sure that they were happy to be back out playing again regardless.

The 1st team also managed a game albeit a friendly. The league game in Hamilton was called off at lunchtime on Friday giving club secretary Ronnie and myself enough time to call round synthetic pitches and possible opponents in order to get something sorted.

So we played Rannoch 1st team and enjoyed a good game on the 3G surface at John Paul, which turned out many positives. All of the guys got a minimum 45 minutes and the chance to get some match fitness. Were also able to try out a different formation which showed promise and in addition we were able to try 2 or 3 players in different positions.

Also, if you have been following our results you will know that we have not had a great season so far, so a creditable 2 all draw was a further bonus even although it was a friendly game.

So lets hope thats us back on the road to more regular football and that we can keep the positivity going!

Why is it that January the 1st seems to automatically offer everyone a new chance or a new start? Is it the date that is significant or is the fact that so much shuts down for a fortnight over the Xmas and New Year holidays?

Whatever the reason its an opportunity we as a club and the 1st team in particular need to take seriously. As a club we are severly short of committee members despite appeals for help and this cant continue for too much longer. We also need new coaches but it looks like we may have 2 or 3 candidates from young coaches who have been volunteering with the club in late 2011.

As for the 1st team, our worst ever start to a season has to be turned around. The reasons are well documented. Any team would struggle to recover from the massive turnover of players we have endured. However, the guys have been training together for a few months now, despite the lack of games in November and December, and have had a good opportunity to get to know each other and to work hard and listen to the coaching team.

So, as is tradition it seems, a new year qualifies everyone for a new start, in all walks of life, so lets hope we are no different and that the new start is a successfull one.