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......

NEXT GAME; Sunday 20th September Clinton!

We have another league game this weekend against one of our oldest rivals......Clinton! Over the last 7 years Clinton have never beaten Madison, not even tied us....but this is not your Grandfathers Clinton ( which used to be full of Grandpas! ) this is the new Brazilian upgraded Clinton!. They are new to the division but did really well in Division 2 during the Summer....we have to be up for this one!

I will be missing this time around and it sounds like Roniildo is still on the injured list, so let's hope we have our new guys out this weekend, I think Jodinho and Fribeka are on blog duty so you have to impress them to get the man of the match award!

The game will be played at Indian River in Clinton which is a great field. Have fun guys!

Champions League Predictions!

OK guys, great result at the weekend! And just to make sure we are learning from the best the Champions League starts TONIGHT! I want to know what team you think will make it all the way to become Champions of Europe in 2010? The final takes place in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid, Spain: May 21-24. Unfortunately, Celtic won't be there this time as they are in the Europa Cup ;o( So, will it be the usual suspects from Current Champions Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal ( arrgghh ), Chelsea or Real Madrid ( at their home ground )? Or will one of the "smaller" teams make a surprise breakthrough?

I can't get all the teams up there for a vote but I'll put up the favourites and if you think some other team will do it then vote for "Other" and tell us who you think it will be and why in no more than 500 words.....

When Celtic were the Best!

MATCH REPORT; Southington 2 Madison 3

Heroic win for depleted Madison team

After all the talk and discussion about needing a bigger squad to get through the season and the call for at least twelve guys to turn up for the game and be "Titans" it was probably all too predictable that the first game of the Fall season would see a ten man Madison team take to the field against Southington. But what a strong ten they were.... Spartans! If Madison could guarantee this level of performance in all their games during the Fall season then maybe it wouldn't be too far fetched to think that this small squad could be good enough.

Not surprisingly Madison started this game cautiously and moved the ball around the back four before sending probing balls forward looking for the weakness in the Southington defence. With only Enrique upfront the passing had to be accurate and mainly from a counter attacking posture. This style of play allowed Madison to settle into the game and restricted Southington's chances to a very few forays into the box. The defensive back four with La Boca restored to the line up looked solid for the first time in several games. The midfield was supporting Enrique very effectively and some of the best chances in the first half were falling to Fribeka, Scott, Tom and Jodinho. One run in particular by Jodinho was worth seeing a replay of. He burst into the Southington penalty box at full speed gliding past two defenders and was only thwarted from a goal of the season candidate by a great finger tip save from the opposition goalie. At this point in the game being a man down was clearly not inhibiting the Celts from dominating the game and after thirty minutes this control was rewarded when a quick move and pass by Tom the Coach released the ball to Enrique who did not hesitate to fire the ball from about 25 yards out past the surprised goalkeeper. Madison controlled the rest of the half and started the break with a well deserved lead. The talk at the break was all about holding onto the lead through the second half as the team were sure to come under an onslaught from Southington. Surprisingly, the second half started with Madison very much still in control and after only five minutes of the half gone a ball was crossed into the Southington box and was handled by one of their players. Penalty to Madison and Tom the Coach took the honour of blasting the ball high and wide past the goal keeper for a two nil lead. After this the game started to get tough for Madison as the strain of playing with only ten men began to tell. The Celts found themselves defending deeper and deeper in their own half and the balls that were getting punted up the field were quickly being sent back into the Madison half. Having survived a number of scares with great saves by El Gato and off the line clearances from La Boca it was an unfortunate own goal by Hamid that brought Southington back into the game. The goal seemed to give them a boost of confidence and Madison had to survive several other long range shots and near misses. Just when it looked like the team might capitulate to all this pressure a great run by Fribeka allowed him to pass a great ball to Enrique who found himself one on one with their goal keeper. Showing great composure he rounded the goalie and slammed the ball into the net to restore Madison' two goal lead.

Madison came under even more pressure after this and the last fifteen minutes of the game involved wave after wave of attacks from Southington and some real gritty defending by Madison. However, Southington managed to pull another goal back after some confusion in the Madison defence and it looked like all the hard work by Madison may come undone in the closing minutes. With only a few minutes left in the game Southington managed to get past the rapidly tiring Madison defence and crossed a great ball into the box where a Southington attacker was unmarked. All he had to do was stroke the ball past El Gato to tie the game but the heroic, some say legendary, Madison goalie dived down to his left to make a great point blank save. All that was left in the game was for Johnaldo to go on a crazy run with the ball down the left wing to run the clock down. And as the whistle went the Madison team fell to their knees from exhaustion but also in relief at achieving such a great result against the odds. This marked their first away win in the 2009 season!

Man Of The Match; Tough to pick one player after such a great team effort. Two great goals by Enrique, fantastic defending by La Boca but i guess the award has to go to El Gato for some outstanding saves especially the game winning one near the end of the game

Enrique and Rob plan the second half tactics

Fribeka fixes his bionic leg for the second half

Midfield maestro Scotty showing how easy the game is

The legendary El Gato....MOM

Conclusive Proof that Eduardo is a Diver and an Expert Jumper!

Celtic were cheated!

NEXT GAME; Sunday 13th Sept Southington!

We are ready to roll into the new season with a game against Southington at their home ground. Last season we played them twice  winning at home 4-2; ( Match Report here; http://madisonceltic.blogspot.com/2009/06/match-report-madison-4-southington-2.html ), 

and  losing the return game 3-1; ( Match Report here;
http://madisonceltic.blogspot.com/2009/08/match-report-southington-3-madison-1.html ).

In the last match we were clearly the stronger team but ran out of steam because of our lack of subs.... i mean no subs... we should have won the game but we could not keep our competitive approach going for the whole 90 minutes. Let's hope we have at least one sub for the game on Sunday!  Looks  like Hamid is the man in charge of the beer!

According to Tom the team we have so far for Sunday is as follows;

Johnaldo, Tom the Coach, Behrooz,  Rob,  Gerry (new guy!), Carlos, Jorge, Scot, Jody, Jacques, Hamid (he confirmed with Tom that he will bring beer!), and Enrique.  No news on Danny yet.

See you all there.........   Titans!!

Fall Season Starts This Weekend!

Amid  the swill of controversy surrounding surprise  retirements, injuries, lost players and mergers we have lost sight of the fact that we start the Fall season this weekend with an away game against Southington! 

  

The key question is "DO WE HAVE ENOUGH PLAYERS FOR SUNDAY??"   

Are we a sinking ship? Or can we ignore the panic and get through the Fall season?

I'm really keen to play this weekend but I am frustrated at the painful weekly count up of players as we hope we scrape enough people interested enough to turn up. I'm not sure what the answer is but something has to be done. Some new players will help but we actually need more than 11 players that will be able to turn up in a regular fashion.   

                                                                                                                                     

Come on Celtic! One last attempt at glory before we hit the iceberg!

Are we the Titanic or are we Titans?

See you Sunday??

Oh, and congratulations to Kevinho for winning goalkeeper of the Summer!

    

Goalkeeper of the Summer Poll!

So Gogglito just edges out Johnaldo 7 to 6 for the defender of the Summer vote.....well done Gogglito! Are you sure you want to play American Football in th Fall??

Final vote of the Summer and it's to vote for the best man between the sticks! We had 3 guys who expertly kept the attacking hordes at bay; Kevinho, El Gato and the man with many names El Gutso, The Heckelator, BOR!!

Fall season starts next Sunday and it is an away game to Southington!..... I will post all the fixtures on the next update