Chairman's Column: Proud of our Reserves team

While the temptation for most people is to concentrate on the results of a football club's first team, sometimes it's better to look a little further down the ranks if you really want to see what's going on and find out whether or not you are moving in the right direction.

Our reserves run by Cameron Omar, assisted by coaches Martin Russell and Darren Hunt are a case in point.
Here at Biggleswade United we have never shifted from the belief that real growth and true success can only really happen if it grows organically, from the youngest sides all the way up to the first team

That, for us, would be the perfect world although the reality is that for it to happen it requires a much better infrastructure to be in place for all sporting clubs in the Biggleswade area.

Put simply it is impossible to entertain the ideal of having male and female sides aged from six years old all the way up to adults if you don't have the pitches or facilities available for training and playing.

Hopefully the imminent arrival of a new 3G facility in the town can help us build a better future for everyone at the club and allow us to bring new teams into our set up.

But even with the constraints put upon us, our reserves side have shown us this year that this is the way ahead.

Made up of youngsters with an average age of around 19, many of the players such as Robbie Hunt, Hayden Gardner, George Heaps, Callum Hollingworth and James Clarke (sincere apologies if I've forgotten anyone) have made their way into the side via our youth sides.

And even those that haven't are now benefitting from having played together for around two seasons and many of them had a baptism of fire when they played for the first team after we lost most of our squad because of the enforced move we had to make into the United Counties League.

Despite suffering some terrible hidings as a result of moving too far, too quickly, it galvanised them as a squad, taught them to be resilient and helped form them not just a players but as people. We will never be able to thank them enough for their contribution. It's no exaggeration to say that without so many of them stepping up to the plate in our darkest times, this club would probably not have survived.

And now we are beginning to reap the benefits of their endeavours. Despite still being young and inexperienced it has been a privilege to see them visibly grow as a team as the season has progressed.

A side that conceded 18 goals in their first four games of the season, despite their limitations, they have grown into an outfit that have battled their way to safety in the Premier Division of the Bedfordshire League and achieved their objective by staying together, both on and off the pitch, watching for each other's backs and playing our style to the very best of their capabilities.

A team that adopted and learned elements of how to play in and out of possession and about transitions during the game. Results over the second half of the season against tough opposition place us in the top half of the form table for our previous ten games.

They are the visible proof of what we have always believed here at Biggleswade United, namely that teams that stay together, grow together, so that eventually, in the words of Aristotle, "the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts."

I could not be prouder of them.