Midweek Training Arrangements
TRAINING
will now take place on MONDAY evenings
between
N.B. Remember Training is NOT OPTIONAL!
ALL squad players should attend regularly. If you are unable to make training but have a genuine reason, then you must let Phil or Martin know before-hand [i.e. 7:00 pm on Monday at the latest] in order to be eligible for selection for Saturday.
We hope to be able to announce the squad for Saturday after the Monday night training session, so make sure you are there to impress!
TRAINING & TEAM SELECTION POLICY
I feel I need to respond to several moans and groans over recent team selections from those who train regularly and yet still find themselves omitted on the Saturday. I appreciate the fact that a lot of players turn up and train regularly every week; however I am still concerned that others come a little less frequently (for various reasons)...and one or two players are hardly ever seen at all!
First of all, let me just say that I know that some of you have LEGITIMATE REASONS why you cannot train and that is still fine...e.g. working night shifts or, if you have picked up a knock on Saturday AND you have contacted me to say you're still not fit to train. I am not unreasonable - and if you have a GENUINE REASON as to WHY you CANNOT train, I will listen sympathetically and take that into account when I make my team selection for Saturday...but I have always said in the past, that I will try to do my best to pick the STRONGEST TEAM from the players available on the Saturday.
However, I am also concerned that a number of other players seem to think that training is purely OPTIONAL and have either NO REASONS for not being there or, at best, "EXCUSES" (which can often range from "weak" to only just about "acceptable" for certain occasions!).
All this has also forced me to have another re-think about my criteria for team selection on a Saturday. I've always wanted to win and I guess I always will, so I would much rather EVERYONE make a much more determined effort to get to training on MONDAY nights OR (at the very least) phone me with your reasons for why you cannot make it.
So in future, team selection will no longer be based solely on who can make it on Saturday - it will also require that you have fulfilled the following eligibility criteria. Training is not an option - it is a requirement - if you want to play every week, I expect to see you more often than not at training. In the interests of fairness, my new selection policy will be largely weighted towards those players who turn up on a MONDAY night - OR who at least bother to phone me with an acceptable reason for missing a training session (i.e. before 7:00 pm on the MONDAY evening)- as eligible for team selection on the following Saturday. This may mean on certain occasions that stronger players could find themselves on the bench or even omitted altogether in favour of those who have met the eligibility criteria.
On a personal note, picking a team inevitably means I have to disappoint several players every week who would have liked to have been in the starting 11 - and that is a difficult and thankless task in itself! And I would much rather avoid being put in the embarrassing position were I have to pick players just because they were at training and perhaps end up in the ludicrous situation of leaving potentially stronger players who could have turned out on the Saturday, sitting on the bench just because they either missed training with no real genuine reason - or had failed to phone/text me with their apologies and an acceptable reason for absence. So please do not put me in that position!
So, EITHER get to training on MONDAY nights OR, if you do have a genuine reason why you cannot make it, then make sure you phone me to let me know why by the above deadline.
