Welcome to the Cats inaugural weekly round-up. We will bring you the highlights each week as we progress through our 2022 season. You can expect to see anything from interviews with players and coaches, player stats, to match reports and much more.
The much anticipated return to football is here. This is always an exciting time, as we welcome new players, coaches, and fans. You probably saw from our last video, our players have been grafting in the gym. To use a personal favourite cliché; champions are made when nobody is watching. There are 13 weeks until April. That means only 13 training sessions until the first games of the season are likely to be scheduled.
Speculation over our league structure is in full swing. As with every year, BAFA have the mammoth task of re-aligning the leagues to accommodate promotions, relegations, folding teams, and new joiners. The latter not affecting us in Division One. But the Bury Saints have unfortunately folded. The Saints were in our league alignment, the SFC 1 East. So will there be a different team added? Will we have a nuanced season whereby teams have to play a random 3rd fixture (home, away & once again) to make ends meet? Hopefully, we will find out soon. With no post-season from last year’s ‘let’s just make football happen’ approach, it’s hard to tell.
The 2021 season gave our OC, Steve Playford, ample opportunity to test out his new playbook. The quicker system provided a much slicker style of play. Feedback from the Offensive players was largely positive and the stats confirmed as much too. But before we congratulate ourselves too much, let’s remember that our opponents will not be the same going into 2022. Hard work will still be required if want to put up winning scores again.
Keep an eye out across our social media platforms next week as we introduce our 18 players and coaches that have been involved in ‘Uniball’. For those that missed it, we posted this week about the 12 Uniball teams that we have attracted players from. We are always on the lookout for new players. Uniball players are most certainly welcome to give us a go.
We have welcomed 10 new players today, as they begin their journey as part of the Pride. The first session back put players through their paces and set the tone for the remaining 12 weeks of preseason.
Being the goal orientated team that we are, we set ourselves a list of goals for the 2022 season at the last AGM. One of which, was to re-build our Youth Programme. Be sure to check out our brand new page which gives full details on how Youth Football is organised by BAFA, the competitions that can be entered, and how you can get involved as a player or coach. Plenty of our players started in Football at the Cats Juniors, so it is very close to our heart in the Adult team.
Birthday announcements this week:
#64 Jess Guthrie, Offensive Line, 3 years at the Cats, also plays in the Women’s league for the Peterborough Royals. Women’s Team GB Lions Training Camp attendee. Cats Most Improved Player 2019.
Happy birthday!!
Coming next week:
Will we have the league structure from BAFA?
Will we have the 2022 fixtures from BAFA?
Who is having a birthday?
See you next week!