At River Juniors we pride ourselves on being a progressive club.
From the 2019-20 season we will begin our 1st Men’s football team with an aim to progress the team to be playing Step 7 (Liverpool County Premier League Premier Division or West Cheshire League Division 1) Football in 5 years time.
The ambition would then be promotion in to the Northwest Counties League and play as a Non-League club with a team mostly of players who have come through the clubs Junior teams. They will play to the River philosophy that runs right through the club, entertaining expressive football and will be a group of players proud to represent the club they’ve been at most of their football lives. Similar to the famous Athletic Bilbao in Spain who only have players playing from the Basque region they are from we would implement a similar policy long term that our team is full of players who’ve played at the club in Junior age groups.
We have given ourselves a 5 year plan to aim to be a top Step 7 team which we feel is a realistic target and it times perfectly with our current U13’s being around 18 years old and in a position to target a place in the 1st team but also able to play in a Youth/U18 division.
It will be an organic pathway that will see our Junior players rise through the age groups with ambitions of representing the club at Non-League level. We know many of the players in every age group at the club have the potential to play at this standard as a minimum realistic aim.
At U17 & U18 we will look to provide an education pathway that would enable players to gain coaching qualifications as well as receive coaching on a daily basis and play in the College League. Players will have opportunities to play Non-League football and also receive expert coaching – minimum UEFA B level – that may assist players to achieve their dreams of being a professional footballer. The coaching education would be provided by working with all the younger players at the club which creates a cycle of being a junior player to coaching the junior players and potentially playing in front of them also.
This is why we take so much pride in individual player development and keeping the football enjoyable and uninstructed across River Juniors and River Academy. First of all we want as many players as possible playing, exercising and socialising but for those dedicated and talented players we have this pathway for them. Everything we do is to keep improving players and protecting their long term love of the game.
Picture this, your son has played for the club since he was 5, he attended the Mini River from age 3 and he’s playing in front of hundreds of kids who also represent the club, playing in them colours every week. He’s going out to play for them kids watching, he was one of them kids, it means so much more to represent your own people.
For those not as serious about their football or not at the level for Non-League football there will be plenty of other open age and veterans teams created as and when needed to keep the players playing together for the duration of their football playing days. You’ve seen how many junior teams we have we’ll be filling all the men’s leagues too in 20 years time!
If you are a player who’s good enough to be playing in the Liverpool County Premier League Division 2 or West Cheshire League Division 3 or above and want to help our club make our dreams a reality then please get in touch.
‘If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough’. Katinka Hosszu
The Riverlution
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