The Jamie Smith Interview

 In June, Jamie Smith, one of Vikings’ juniors, went to London to take part in trials for the England U16 squad.  Jamie played for Vikings U13 team in the 2006/07 season, and will be playing in the senior league next season.  The trials went well and Jamie, 13, was selected for the squad.  I spoke to him to get his views on the trials and to ask what happens next.

 How did you find the trials?

“The trials were quite tough, but fun.  There were 15 boys there trialling.  The best part was a bounce/catch exercise, where the coach would be about a metre away from you, he’d drop a little bouncy ball, it would bounce once and you had to catch it before it bounced the second time.”

 How did you think the trials had gone?

“I thought I’d done OK, but I wasn’t sure if I’d get in or not.”

 How did you feel when you found out that you had been selected?

“I was shocked.  Shocked but happy, of course.  It means a lot to me beacuse it’s something I’ve wanted for a long time.  But it also means that now I have a reputation to keep up – the coaches know who you are.”

 What happens now?

“I’m going to have to work even harder and learn more.  Training with the england squad will be once a month in London, and I might have 1-on-1′s with Pete Teague (one of the England Coaches) every two weeks or so.”

N.Y.D.

Sunday July 1st – National Youth Day 2007

Location: Longstanton, near Cambridge

 Vikings entered two teams in National Youth Day - an Under 13 team and an Under 11 team.  However we were a bit short of players, so some of our Under 13s were actually under 11, and some of our Under 11s were actually Under 9s!

 I was in charge of the U13 team.  I had a few different division plans to try out and it was interesting to see how different players played together, but by the afternoon we had a good set-up that didn’t need much altering.

 We had some tough games in the morning against some of the best U13 teams in the country, and although we only won one game, all of the matches were close and we never got thrashed by anyone.  Some of the morning highlight’s included a wonderful free pass from Ant which resulted in his first ever goal in a proper match.  Jamie Cranwell got a chance to show off his new goal celebration (the chicken walk?) when he scored twice.  And we beat Nomads 2 – a team who had beaten us at the EKA U13 Championships.

 Meanwhile the U11s were in a tough group too.  With a mixture of young and inexperienced players, they were without a win, but playing well as a team, especially in defense, having some fun and hopefully learning a lot about the game.

 We had a bit of a shooting competition during the lunch break.  The rules were simple – pairs of people had to score as many goals as they could in two minutes.  Courtney and Rory set a good early standard with 22 goals!  This went unbeaten for a long time until Alex and Jamie Smith scored 24 and won the competition.

 After lunch, Vikings U13s had some more tough games against the likes of Norwich City, Chalkstone and Kweik.  Unfortunately some people had to go home at lunch time, so both teams were two players down for the afternoon.  The U13s borrowed players from Scorpions and later from Wildcats, although it turned out that by doing this we had to forfeit the matches.  So for the last two matches we decided to play two players down.  It would be tough, but at least the results would count.  We beat Nomads again with help from two Wildcat girls in a void match, but then in the last match of the day, we managed to beat Chalkstone, even though they had two more players than us!  It was a great performance with good attacking moves and everyone working hard in defense.  A Jamie Smith hat-trick and one from Alex (his fourth goal of the day) giving us a 4-2 victory.  Definitely our performance of the day.

 Special mention goes to Robyn who was voted girl of the match twice by the referee.  She played really well all day, getting good feeds and showing lots of aggression, even when she was playing one against two in two games in the afternoon.  She also scored a goal for the U11s and was very unlucky not to score for the U13s.  Her performance was even more impressive because she was playing for the U13 team, even though she only turned 10 last week!

 The Under 11s scored some goals in the afternoon as well.  Tom scored a lovely goal and followed it up with a rolling celebration.  And Ellie, with only seconds to go in the last match, scored a goal as the team captain.  She was delighted.

 Well done to everyone who played – even those who could only play in the morning – and to all the parents, brothers, sisters and dogs who came along to support us.  The rain stayed off and hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves.