7 Jun 2008 - Mini Soccer Prize Night

Last night saw the Annual Prize Night for the Mini Soccer teams. As normal the event was held in the Elim Pentecostal's Area One. And again the upstairs conference room was packed with all the players, coaches, parents and grandparents which was a great example of how families play a large part of our club.

There to award the prizes to the young players were Portadown players Johnny Topley, Wesley Boyle and Andrew Wright. This is the second time that both Johnny and Wesley have presented awards to our players as they also attend the main club dinner just a few weeks ago. It was also a pleasure to see Andy return to the club were he played his youth fooball before joining the senior club.

The proceedings began with club secretary, Nigel Davison, reading a statement from our club chairman, Ricky Steenson, who unfortunately was unable to attend due to prior committments. In it he commended all the players for their hard work and committment over the past year. He also congratulated the players form both the U9 & U10 teams who went to the Easter & Spring Festival of Football in Scotland and won their tournaments. Academy Director Nigel Armstrong also commended all the boys from all the Academy and the Mini Soccer teams for their hard work over the past season and made a presentation to Richard & Wendy Cowan for their help during the year and also presented U8 manager, Andy Black, with the one piece of vital equipment that he has been missing all season, a referee's whistle.

The first set of team prizes were presented by Andrew Wright to the U8 team. The prizes were given to Ryan Upton for Most Improved Player, Jamie Black for Top Goalscorer, Michael Gray for Clubman of the Year, Mark Farrell for Player's Player of the Year and Darragh Gray for Player of the Year. Next up was Wesley Boyle to present the prizes for the U9's and their prizes were given to Robbie Grant for Most Improved Player, Tyler Blair for Top Goalscorer, Sid Irwin for Clubman of the Year, Craig Taylor for Player's Player of the Year and Player of the Year was a joint award to Zac Wilson and Daniel Robb. The last set of team awards were presented to the U10's by Johnny Topley and they were given to Neil Allen for U10 Colts Top Goalscorer, Josh Coleman for U10 Colts Player of the Year, James Gould for Most Improved Player, Ryan Smyth for Top Goalscorer, Christopher Hall for Clubman of the Year, Johnny Farell for Player's Player of the Year and Adam Hill for Player of the Year.

There were still two awards still to be presented and the first of those was the Robin McCreadie Memorial Cup. This was presented to a young lad who in his first year of the Academy showed such a great attitude, listened to his coaches and improved so much that he was regularly chosen to represent the U8's on Saturday mornings in Loughgall and that player was Joshua Smyth. The last award of the night was the Joel Patton Player of the Academy Cup. This was awarded to a very promising young player who started playing for the U8 team at the age of 6 and as Nigel Davison said 'a player who played in every position and did it with a smile on his face' and this player was Tyler Marsden.

Photographs of the event will appear later.