Meet the Manager
Tom Sutton (19) and Joe Thompson (20) are joint managers on Wilpshire Wanderers Under 10s Red and have been for the past two years. They play their matches on a Saturday in the Accrington District Junior Football League. Both of them have played for Wilpshire when they were younger with Tom playing for 11 years and Joe for 12 years. They have been good friends growing up in the Wilpshire area, both attending Ribblesdale High School and now both working together at The Three Fishes in Mitton. Whilst playing Joe also coached with dad for 4 years with the currant Wilpshire u15’s team. Academically he studied sports science at Myerscough college for three years and has also got his Level 1 certi?cate in coaching football along with the Level 1 child’s awareness in football. Tom has built his way up to achieving his Level 2 certi?cate in coaching football and is currently studying for the Prozone level 1 Football analysis. Both of the lads agree that coaching youth football is to make it as fun as possible. Joe says ‘’The group of boys that we have are wonderful. Every week we aim to coach a different aspect of football but add a fun and enjoyable twist that the kids will like.’’ Tom went on to say ‘’We can see good improvements every week. In our ?rst season we would get beaten heavily but the boys kept up our spirit and eventually it paid off with us narrowly losing in the cup ?nal last year. Both Joe and I agree that even though we lost by one goal in the ?nal we felt that we
had won and our celebrations after the match topped those of our opponent. That shows that football isn’t always about winning but who can have the most fun.’’Joe added ‘’That small marginal loss has propelled us to a fantastic start this season and we hope the boys can keep going so that we can ?nish in a good position at the end of the season.’’
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