Madison Celtic Bar Summit

Guys, great meeting! Here are some of the points I took note of, please edit/correct /add as you see fit!

We covered all of our issues and agreed on a way forward on everything...and we had a few beers! Those attending were Jodinho, TTC, El Gato, BOR, Gerry, Roniildo, Johnaldo and Fribeka!

The executive summary of the evening would be as follows;

The following players were voted into key positions;

El Presidente.................................Tom the Coach has a new title!

Chief Financial Officer..................Roniildo

Chief Operating Officer.................Johnaldo

Chief Entertainment officer..........BOR

Chief Recruitment Officer.............Jodinho

El Gato...........................................El Gato

We agreed that each of these people would have a role to set up aspects of the team administration in a more effective manner.

KEY ACTIONS;

Team Communication, Accountability and Clarity;

The team communication process around game day will be managed by a new process. The e-mail responsive part of the team will be e-mailed on a Tuesday morning and will be asked for their availability for the following Sunday and must reply by 11am on Thursday. Please make every effort to reply. But, no reply means you are not available! We have identified 5 players that need to be phoned for confirmation and Rob, Ron and Tom are actioned to do the calling, again with the same Thursday morning deadline. Tom and John will then decide if we have enough for the game on Sunday. If not, Tom and John will make the notifications to the team, the ref, the league and the opposition. Tom will supply all current phone numbers to the core group.

Interactions with the League/Town/ fixtures list etc

The field coordinator will be Behrooz. Fixtures list will be coordinated by Tom, Disciplinary issues will be dealt with Tom and John

Finances

Roniildo is now in charge of team finances. He will set up a new bank account and plan out fees etc for the rest of the year and map out key expenses for the year overall

Player Recruitment

We formed a new committee to look at aggressive approaches to player recruitment. Jodinho is in charge of this team. The members are Fribeka, La Boca, Rob, Ron, Tom and Scott. They will look at practice sessions, individual contacts, advertising and any other imaginative approaches to player recruitment

Entertainment

A new entertainment committee has been formed and being led by Rob. The committee includes Jodinho, Johnaldo and Scott. They will come up with the beer rota, the summer picnic plans annual meetings and maybe even plans for a " Hall Of Fame".

Other issues we discussed included looking at setting up a real practice night for the team involving the guidance of La Boca, planning for the indoor season, planning for a move to a new league and game day issues like tactics, subbing etc

I will expect each of the guys to come up with more detailed plans in the coming weeks!

Thanks for having such a great meeting and we will plan to have one at least every 2 months.

Our next game is this Sunday away to Bridgeport. The roll call for this game will start tomorrow!

Team Meeting at Auger's Bar!

After all the turmoil around team numbers and clear communication we have finally settled on a night to meet and discuss all our issues. We will meet at Auger's Bar in Guilford at 6.30pm this Monday, 28th September. I have copied the agenda into the comments page below. If i haven't covered everything just add further topics. I know not everyone can make the meeting but we have a core group of 7 that hopefully can make it. If you can't make the meeting but want to volunteer to help out with some of the issues mentioned or have ideas about how we can improves things just blog it, e-mail or tell me! I will post any minutes and recommendations from the meeting on the blog as soon as possible.

Best Players of Summer '09

After the deluge of emails around the "will we or won't we play this weekend" debate we can relax this Sunday, get to know your family again and hope we can muster up the magical 11/12 players for next weekends game. Some of us will be meeting this Monday night at Augers bar in Guilford to discuss some administration issues around the team. We need more players and better communication within the team. I'm sure we can achieve that......I'll keep you posted!

Just to cheer us up I thought I would remind you about the winners of our "best players of the summer awards"!

And the winners are??

Well done to Carlito, Gogglito and Kevinho for their first wins in the best player awards for Summer "09 and to Roniildo who picks up his second award as best midfielder!

Hope to see you all on the field again soon!

MATCH REPORT; Clinton 3 Madison 2

Under strength Madison team hold on for respectable defeat

I missed the game but our intrepid reporter Jodinho managed to write down a few salutary comments about the match! I know i was off white water rafting but it does look like we have a real sustainability issue this season. When only 9 guys turn up for a game you know we are in trouble! It's amazing the team managed the score they did with a reduced team count. This proves we are a good team but we need a core set of 16 guys that more or less will turn up every week. Some tough talking and reality checking needs to happen......and soon!

Report by Jodinho

"An undermanned Madison Celtic faced a revamped Clinton squad Sunday, with Madison proudly staying in the game by playing a controlled and energetic game. As the teams warmed up it became clear that Madison had only 9 players….where was Tom the Coach? Carlos? New recruit Todd? Seems that lack of communication was the culprit once again, as Tom the Coach failed to let his team know he wasn’t playing and he incorrectly assumed that Carlos and Todd got the word that the game was to be played in Clinton and not Madison....even the referee didn’t show up, and Clinton, with a full team of 18 players, agreed to contribute one of their players to act as ref.

Just prior to kickoff, Enrique was able to convince one of his spectator amigos to join the Madison side so that the team had 10. With the new infusion of young Latin players on the Clinton team, Madison had its hands full! Clinton struck quickly, scoring a quick header teed up from just outside the box, in the first five minutes of play. It looked like it was going to be ugly, but Madison pulled together with La Boca and Enrique leading the charge. The Celts had a number of chances on goal via breakaways as Clinton was mostly controlling the ball. La Boca and his defensive line held strong through the first half and the halftime whistle found the score 1-0 Clinton.

Fortunately for Madison, another of Enrique’s amigos, Andre, showed up at half and suited up to make a full strength team of 11. Not more than 2 minutes into the half Clinton scored again to make it 2-0!!! Instead of hanging their heads, Madison played harder, though the midfielders Fribeka, Scottie and Jodinho were literally running in circles and up and down the pitch. Andre provided two quick scores for Madison with skill and pace that wasn’t available in the first of play. A number of flagrant fouls ensued and the teams became rowdy and aggressive. A Clinton player was taken down in the box with about 10 minutes to play and the penalty kick was struck cleanly into Madison’s goal. Madison continued to push and missed a couple of equalizers, and the game ended on bad note with one of Clinton’s players writhing in pain on the ground and both teams completely at each other.

Post-game, several Madison players made it clear that they would no longer be playing on the team if only 9 or 10 players can be fielded."

MAN OF THE MATCH; La Boca; he played great D and shut down their primary scorer....though his Boca nearly got the better of him......